Lilith
by Huinari
Summary: Saya, the Sakamaki Brothers, and Komori Yui. Love, too, had to be learned.
1. prologue

The wish was granted, and she had her sword, the blade that she would wield for her vengeance. Nanahara Fumito was dead, nothing but dust in the winds.

And in return, Saya would be forever alone.

. . . in this world, that was.

* * *

The dim light of the room glinted off the man's long, silver hair as he lowered his head in a mockery of a bow. Curled locks like pale moonlight fell from his shoulders, unable to resist the pull of gravity, and between the silver strands his gold eyes shone with adoring interest at his newfound subject, brought to his attention by chance and circumstance.

No coincidence, but set forth by events from such a long time ago it may well have been so because no one expected to find the traitorous blood of Lilith wandering around in the Arctic, lost and hungry but still so extraordinarily strong and capable of defending herself from any and all threats she ran into.

"I must say," he said, almost singing his words, ecstatic at what he had found. "It is an honor to meet the famed cannibal, the first traitor, in person at long last."

Saya met his gaze, and though her hand wasn't on her sword she could feel the extension of her arms, her power thrumming under her skin. She could swing the blade towards his head or heart, she could crush him. It would be a fight that offered her a challenge, no doubt about it, but she could.

He wore the appearance of a human – an inhumanely beautiful one at that – but he was no human and did not fall under the protection of the vow she was bound to.

Elder Bairn. Demon. Vampire.

The name and the classification did not matter, in the end. He was inhuman. His status as a king did nothing to protect him. Not when she was a queen, a goddess, one that stood above all – and an outlier. Rules others of her kind, or at least those similar to her followed could not bind her. Saya was bound only by her rules, her oath.

Those above controlled those below and there was no one above her, she who stood as the pinnacle of the predators roaming the night.

His eyes curved into delighted crescents and his gloved fingers played with the corner of his pale lips, as if he tried in vain to hide his smile.

"Oh, my lady," he whispered, caught up in his lunacy as he saw her for what she was, what she could do. What she could be. "You are magnificent, indeed."

Used, again. As she always was.

But Saya had need of him, in the end, while she wandered and stumbled and tried to figure things out as he had need of her.

And so the night Saya met Karlheinz, they spoke till long after the sun had broken the canopy of darkness, and at last made a deal.


	2. 1-1: opportunities for eternity

part one: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

or

Saya, and life with the Sakamaki Brothers pre-Yui.

* * *

 _Take me I'm alive_  
 _Never was a girl with a wicked mind_  
 _But everything looks better when the sun goes down_  
 _I had everything_  
 _Opportunities for eternity_  
 _And I could belong to the night_

'Make Me Wanna Die', The Pretty Reckless

Kisaragi Saya, for the few short months she lived as such, had been a seventeen-year-old girl attending Sanbara High School. She had been – at least, by her beliefs – normal.

Saya, with memories of pain-filled immortality returned and far older than seventeen, could not pull it off as easily.

Karlheinz – Reinhart at the school as a doctor of all things – however, insisted.

"Otherwise, how will you protect Eve?" he said whimsically, adjusting his disguise. It was hardly a disguise, Saya thought. There was almost no effort made to disguise his face, made to distract the senses of those who were prey. He was like the rest of those that walked the night, a carnivorous flower, drawing in its food with pretty colors and scents until it was too late for the prey to escape.

The inhumane were so often beautiful, enough to draw in poor, unfortunate souls to their demise.

"No, milady, you must attend the academy. Oh, don't be so quick to protest!" He smiled, a soft pull of the lips and a gentle curve of the eyes that gave him a mysterious, almost melancholic air.

It was the kind Fumito used to wear, and on Karlheinz Saya hated it.

"Ryoutei Academy will be good for you," he promised when she refused. "It is a fine institution, one that will help prepare you for anything you may need in the future. It is always good to keep one's options open, after all."

Because a vampire could not create false identities that would let her be an adult instead of a minor needing legal protection. She pointed out to him that if he was acting as a school doctor, he could very well make up an adult's identity for her without needing this ridiculous, childish farce.

Karlheinz protested to her accusations of fraud.

"I will have you know, my dear lady, that I am fully qualified to be called by the title of 'doctor'," he said indignantly. "More than qualified. One cannot have accomplished nothing at my age lest he be considered useless. I have doctorates in many fields of studies. Under different names, but the education is very much there and properly earned."

Saya gave up, and another Kisaragi Saya entered high school, this time as a nineteen-year-old who had been severely ill for a long time and was attending for her final year. She was to attend this one school in particular at night because her cousins attended it in the same period of time, and she could use all the help she could get.

She refused to become Sakamaki Saya, because as her father she would only accept Kisaragi Tadayoshi. It was one of the few things she would not give up on, no matter the falsehoods or the pointlessness of it all at this point. Karlheinz did not protest at her insisting on it – and made the false identities and background stories for it, proving her point but remaining firm on the farce.

"Take care of yourself, Kisaragi-chan," 'Doctor Reinhart' simpered.

Saya frowned. "You're not coming with me?"

Not even introducing her to his sons himself?

He grinned, eyes twinkling with mirth, and leaned in like he wanted to share a secret with her.

"I'm afraid my sons don't like me very much," he whispered, and pulled back to allow the demon familiar to shut the door of the limousine.

She took his words at face value at the time, but after her arrival Saya felt the urge to stab him with one of the many swords he had provided her with.

The Vampire King was cut from the same cloth as Fumito, which meant that he plotted and kept all his plans to himself. It was a strict need-to-know basis he worked with, where every last thing needed to be under his control.

Case in point, he did not see anyone 'needing to know' of Saya's presence until the day of her arrival at the manor where his sons lived under the name of 'Sakamaki'.

 _'My sons can be a little rough,'_ Karlheinz had said, the bastard. Had Saya been a regular girl, she likely would have been killed in the first few minutes of her arrival.

As it was, she made for quite the entrance instead, destroying parts of the manor and leaving three of the six boys in craters, dazed and beaten.

While the redheaded one – the first one to jump at her – swore, Saya dusted off her hands and made an assessment of what she had seen so far. The other redhead and the silver-haired one both appeared a little concussed, but still intact. No broken bones or skin – but only because she had held back, not because of any skill in fighting on their part.

Her conclusion was that she could have killed them. Despite their human appearance they were still very much not covered by her vow to protect. She could have slit their throats and drunken their blood, fed from them until they were drained dry.

She could have.

 _'I'd prefer it if they were alive, but losing one or two is alright,'_ Karlheinz had told her. _'So long as I get an Adam from one of them. Do as you will with my sons, my dear lady.'_

Shady business partners were never the best to work with. He hadn't even told all his sons that she would be living with them, likely expecting for her to run into this kind of 'welcome' and thinking it to be more beneficial in the long run.

How troublesome.

Saya nearly sighed, and let her eyes, still red and ready for battle, for blood, roll to meet the gaze of the dark-haired one standing at the top of the stairs. Like all those that lived in the sparsely lit embrace of the night as hunters, he was pale and beautiful, but unlike his brothers his hair was the shade of dark charcoal and he was dressed impeccably down to the last crease of his uniform. His sternness reflected not just in his way of dress but also his face, hard as if they were carved out of ice, or marble.

"You must be Kisaragi Saya," he said coolly, as if having three of his brothers defeated by her was nothing but a minor inconvenience. "I have been told you would arrive. Please, make yourself at home."

There was nothing warm or welcoming about his voice, and his words were just that, words with no significant meaning or genuine emotion behind them. Nothing but lip service.

She preferred it that way, devoid of emotional warmth, for what was to happen. It was easier to deal with someone who drew clear lines and didn't try to approach her on a more personal level, and with what was planned one last betrayal was hardly something she would appreciate.

While the brighter-colored brothers she had knocked down protested and questioned her presence, she merely nodded and gathered her things, a suitcase of clothes Karlheinz had picked out for her and the swords he had given her. All three of them, plus the one she had from before.

Really, a blade was all she needed. The clothes were just Karlheinz having fun dressing her up like a doll, insisting that she was fashionably prepared for every occasion.

"I am Reiji," he introduced himself as he led her down the hall and to a room like the ideal butler. Furnished in a luxurious western style, it had a large bed, a grand window, thickly carpeted floors and a desk. Far more than what she had needed, but with no personal touches or warmth. "The ones that welcomed you were my half-brothers, Ayato, Laito and Subaru."

Saya nodded and mentally took note of how his lips curled into a slight sneer at the mention of his brothers. Or was it the 'welcome' part?

"Dinner will be served at the hall in two hours," he informed her. "I have been alerted of your dietary preferences. Please do attend."

While phrased as one it was hardly a request, but Saya would acquiesce to it. She still had the others to scope out, and a first impression to decide on.


	3. 1-2: these frightened hands of mine

part one: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

or

Saya, and life with the Sakamaki Brothers pre-Yui.

* * *

 _What I hold in these frightened hands of mine_  
 _Is courage made of handpicked flowers._  
 _My feelings alone are all that I rely upon,_  
 _A wish that will awaken_  
 _The light._

'Magia', Kalafina

"Are we determined by our birth?" Karlheinz poured blood into a crystal goblet and offered it to her. Saya tried to take it, but felt her compulsion act up, stopping her hand and refusing to allow it past her lips.

Human blood, then. Even returned to the world she had been born in and her powers returning to their fullest, the oath she swore so long ago still bound her as tightly as it did in the other world. It likely forever would.

"Or by our circumstances and surroundings?" Smoothly, as if there were no mishaps, Karlheinz took the crystal goblet away, replacing it with an identical, empty goblet. He pulled out a different bottle and poured it out, filling it halfway before offering it to her once more.

This time, there were no compulsions that kept her from taking it. Saya let the glass perch in her fingers and swirled the red contents inside. Blood of demons, the only sustenance that could truly feed her and keep her nourished.

But her appetite was dampened by the words he had chosen. By coincidence or incredible intuition, he had used words that Fumito used when initiating their bet.

A reward for the victor, a punishment for the loser. She had won, and he had lost – but he had won, and she had lost.

Saya let out a slow breath through her nose. Her blade had lost its purpose, and she had lost her aim. The last signpost was passed, and now she was wandering blind.

Karlheinz smiled. It might have been a sad, mournful smile on the lips of the non-man who whispered in her ear a promise, gave her one last direction to go down.

"You give me hope, milady," he said, as reverent as a devoted worshipper at the foot of his deity. "Such hope indeed that it will all end as I had wished."

One last person, one last human to protect. And then it would all be over.

He raised his own glass. "A toast?" he suggested. "For the new Adam and Eve to come, and for our long-awaited end to arrive at last."

The red liquid in the crystal goblet quivered, and the ripples ran across her reflection, distorting her image. Saya closed her eyes.

* * *

"You."

Wandering in the Arctic, somewhere in the wastelands of Russia too cold for large human settlements, Saya had made do with the small number of demons she ran into, those living in the wilds and preying on the occasional humans and wildlife that were too weak to live full-time in the Demon Realm. The cold was harsh, but with her full powers returned temperature was hardly enough to kill her, and the local demons too weak to pose even the smallest of threats.

It was there that she ran into the first pure-blooded vampire since her return, and that encounter led to Karlheinz stumbling upon her.

Said vampire glowered at her, though compared to the reception she had received earlier in the evening it was tame. He looked a lot different now, in a proper house instead of the Arctic. Fair hair like spun gold shone fully under the light of the dining room, and blue eyes like a summer sky narrowed angrily at her presence invading his home. Earphones hung from his ears as lethargically as he once had been, but he looked ready to fight if necessary, drawing his tall, wiry body into an instinctive tenseness at the sight of her again.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, on edge. They weren't being pitted against each other like they had before, but the pain ingrained into him during their last encounter had left him incredibly wary.

The other brothers didn't seem worried. Rather, they watched the two of them with keen eyes, curious as to how the newcomer knew one of their own.

Saya saw no need to answer, so she took a sip from the goblet and rolled the wine around in her mouth. Half-wine and half-blood. She knew next to nothing about wine, but the blood wasn't human.

She swallowed. It burned on the way down, and not necessarily in the bad way.

"Kisaragi Saya," said Reiji, taking on the role of introducing them formally. Karlheinz hadn't bothered back when he stepped in, too busy gleefully taking in her return to this world to note his bleeding, severely wounded son, or to let them know each other's names.

Saya hadn't known he was the son of Karlheinz, or that she would be making a deal with his father at the time.

"This good-for-nothing is Sakamaki Shu, the oldest and the most useless one of us all." Reiji's lips curled into a sneer of disdain as he looked at his brothers, this time addressing all of them. "Saya is a guest who will be living with us for the foreseeable future."

Shu kept an eye on her, but when she did not react, he took his seat.

"Huh," said one of the redheaded ones. Reiji had given her three names, but hadn't matched them to faces yet. "So you two know each other?"

Saya raised the fork to her mouth. Pasta with carbonara sauce, glistening in the light beautifully. It looked delicious.

"He tried to bite my head off," she said, not lying about how their first encounter had gone. Let this be a warning to you all, she thought. "And I threw him into the ocean after stabbing him."

Again, no lie. That was how their first encounter had gone. She just didn't mention what happened afterwards.

Then she put the pasta into her mouth. It was as deliciously cooked as it looked, the sauce silky with oil and rich cheese.

In the cold of the Arctic, the boy had tried to drink her blood, thinking her to be a mere human. She had proven to him just how terribly wrong he had been. One who had only ever been predator was about to become prey when the Vampire King stepped in, not for the sake of his son but for the sake of his curiosity, peaked at what he sensed.

The other brothers froze, before their heads almost whipped towards the blond. Shu sighed.

"She nearly killed me," he said, almost resigned. Not a lie, either.

Saya shrugged, mouth full. They were looking at her with far less fear than she would have preferred. Some – the two redheads – were snickering like the idea of their brother being attacked by her was funny. Reiji actually looked intrigued, of all things. Not the closest of families, she assumed. And if that dissonance would translate over to their ability to fight together in coordination . . .

They would stand no chance if she turned on them with the intent to kill.

What a long way to go.

Saya took another bite of the food and found herself missing _guimauves_. She took a sip of the blood-wine to make up for the craving, and only partially succeeded.


	4. 1-3: a vision softly creeping

part one: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

or

Saya, and life with the Sakamaki Brothers pre-Yui.

* * *

 _Hello darkness, my old friend_

 _I've come to talk with you again_

 _Because a vision softly creeping_

 _Left its seeds while I was sleeping_

 _And the vision that was planted in my brain_

 _Still remains_

 _Within the sound of silence_

'Sound of Silence', Simon & Garfunkel

Saya was the first to retreat to her rooms after the meal was over, and the brothers, usually never a fan of spending more time with each other than necessary, came to a temporary truce to discuss their newest housemate. Karlheinz may have been the one to send her, but none of them held particularly deep or genuine feelings of respect towards their sire.

Their collective assessment and knowledge regarding her was:

Kisaragi Saya was the name she used at the present, though for their kind that didn't really mean all that much. She appeared young physically, so even as an immortal of the night she couldn't be ancient, but again, that meant nothing for her actual age. The girl was beautiful, a Snow White brought to life from the stories with ebony hair and fair skin. Her height was slight, smaller than all of the brothers, but, as Laito saw necessary to point out, by no means was she young in terms of her figure, full-breasted and beautifully legged. She moved with restraint and poise, but even her stoic behavior made for something eye-catching, something worth challenging and breaking. At this point the truce nearly broke as Subaru nearly lost his patience and Reiji told Laito to move on to important details, like her fighting capabilities. Against three pureblooded vampires attacking her, even not at full strength or with an intent to kill, she had been more than capable of defending herself and retaliating with force. Without using any of her swords.

Even among those with the purest blood of demons who inherited beauty and strength, she was magnificent.

"Can we kill her?" Ayato asked, ever the impatient one. Beauty wasn't as important as the fact that she had caught him off-guard and defeated him easily. Now she was a rival to be challenged.

"Says the one who got knocked out flat in the first three seconds," Laito taunted, never one to allow his brother to get away with having his pride unruffled.

Kanato idly played with his stuffed bear as his fellow triplets argued.

". . . I want to make her into a doll," he said at last.

Shu, the only one to contribute nothing to the discussion between brothers, thought of the young woman as she had been when he first laid eyes on her, wandering in the Arctic with nothing but a sword in hand and tattered, blood-stained clothes barely offering her proper protection from the elements. Her hair, pitch-black and dirty with the grime of time and what he now knew as taken lives had been tangled past the point of civilization, lopped off unevenly in some parts and long and trailing in others.

Having been sent there as punishment for being held back a year in the farce of the school life he was forced to play through, Shu had tried to drink from her to sate his hunger in the hostile environment. It was just how things were supposed to go. Weak humans who stood next to no chance in a place like the Arctic would inevitably die, and all he was doing was speeding up the process. A mercy, in a way. This way she would not have to suffer any longer.

Except she had not been human in any sense of the word, could not have been wandering the Arctic as she was without being more than human, and he had realized that too late. That night under the full moon when he was supposed to be at his strongest, as the woman with wildly tangled dark hair and eyes like a true demon had nearly killed him with ease, Shu understood just a little of what a prey felt as a predator demonstrated undefeatable might.

And he felt more of it later, when the king of vampires stepped in and pitted them against each other.

 _'To test your strengths_ ,' his biological father had said, smiling in a way Shu had never seen him before. ' _Both of yours.'_

Shu had stood absolutely no chance as she methodically crushed him in every way with cool, uninterested eyes. Once it was more than abundantly clear who the superior one was, he had been allowed to return to the manor.

He still remembered the words of the Vampire King, spoken between chuckles of amusement.

 _'My lady, do have a little mercy for now. We cannot match your prowess for fighting . . . or for healing. His limbs will not grow back once removed like yours.'_

Shu had never stood a chance. And once it was over Karlheinz hadn't been able to take his eyes off her, a fire in his eyes that was unfamiliar to him, something he never would have associated with his biological father. The king's wives would have burned up in jealousy had they all been alive to witness it.

Because their family did not show or teach love well, but as foreign and unfamiliar as the emotion was to him Shu could recognize it in, of all places, the eyes of his old man at that moment.

He closed his eyes and turned on music, letting the sounds of an orchestra fill his ears and washing away reality like the crashing tides of the sea. When he entered the dining room and saw her, he almost hadn't recognized her, eyes no longer a glowing red with vertical slits and ebony hair thick and glossy and tamed, dressed in fine clothes of tailored silk. She was a far cry different from the ragged, filthy mess she had been. Eye-catchingly beautiful – what Snow White truly might have looked like, as Laito jested – and not at all powerful in appearance.

Shu might have almost been fooled and not recognized her.

Might have.

But he had. He couldn't not have, not when his every nerve screamed of danger and warned him of the top predator in the room with her deceptive appearance. Wounds might have healed but his body remembered the trauma.

"If you even can," Shu muttered, the only contribution he would make to this pointless discussion. All six of them combined wouldn't stand a chance against her. Perhaps their thick heads would be able to process that truth soon enough.

* * *

By two nights later Saya learned how to tell the difference between the two redheads. The longer-haired one that tried to fondle her was Laito, and the shorter-haired one that called her 'Rocket Boobs' was Ayato. Despite being triplets they did have their obvious differences, and she could tell them apart now. It was always just a matter of paying attention, and details could rarely escape her eyes.

Besides, they didn't actively try to appear identical or act in similar manners to each other.

Saya left them both with broken bones to teach them that her strength overwhelmed theirs.

She wasn't the only one to learn, either. Ayato bolted after hurling taunts at her, learning that she found it too much of a bother to chase after him, but Laito never ran and so suffered further punishments for his reckless courage.

"I have been told you cannot regenerate lost limbs," she told Laito, crushing his knee under her foot because two broken wrists didn't seem to have taught him the lesson properly. He cried out in pain but immediately after pulled his lips into a saucy grin, almost as if he was daring her to do more.

Saya considered crushing his other knee as well. She preferred her kills to be quick and efficient as much as possible, but inflicting pain couldn't be too hard, now could it?

"So I will refrain from ripping them off for now," she continued, shelving the thought for later. Perhaps when he healed from the breaks. "But continue to push me, Laito, and I make no guarantees."

"Ahh, Bitch-san is so cruel to me," Laito whined from the ground. "She needs to let loose a little bit – but then again, the more uptight you are, the more you have fun in bed . . ."

She kicked him in his abdomen to stop him from talking and reconsidered exploring her talents in torture. Odd how the first time she used force she had felt like a thug, having to threaten with violence to get her point across. How soon she grew accustomed to the new norms.


	5. 1-4: built for it, all the abuse

part one: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

or

Saya, and life with the Sakamaki Brothers pre-Yui.

* * *

 _I'm fucked up, I'm black and blue  
I'm built for it, all the abuse  
I got secrets, that nobody, nobody knows_

'Gangsta', Kehlani

Saya thought Kanato, the delicate-looking one with wide eyes the same shade as his lilac hair was the youngest one, as well as the quietest. She found herself so very wrong on both counts when she mistakenly called him the youngest and was treated to a hysterical tantrum.

"I am not the youngest!" he screamed, clutching to his stuffed bear with hands that clawed at the soft material frantically. The way he glared at her as he did so told her he would very much have liked to be clawing at her instead.

Smart enough to not come at her directly, but not fearing her.

"Alright," she said, even as his behavior wasn't helping her believe his words. There was the method of knocking him out to quieten him, and she knew they were tough enough that she didn't have to worry about accidentally killing them by overdoing it, but constantly using violence against them wasn't ideal.

Tempting, to use her superior strength into suppressing them into behaving, but not ideal. Overdoing it would be counterproductive, not when the eldest was already far too wary of her to even try anything and the not-youngest was cautious enough to withhold himself. They needed to fear her _just_ enough, to see her as a threat to eventually eliminate given the chance.

Saya prepared some coffee for herself, instead. Mix coffee was easy enough to make, though sorely lacking in flavor and depth.

"Who is the youngest, then?" she asked conversationally, over his screaming and a hot beverage. Might as well, she thought, take this opportunity to learn more about the brothers.

Kanato glowered at her over his teddy bear, but she merely sipped at the coffee and found it lacking, not just in flavor or depth. She should have added some blood to it. Karlheinz had the blood of demons sent to her for her consumption periodically rather than having her survive off his sons. Perhaps he knew that she was more likely to leave the mansion than feed on them.

Just personal preference on her part. Saya would indulge herself in what ways she could as it all came to an end.

". . . Subaru," Kanato said sulkily, voice edged with hoarseness from his screaming fit.

"I see," she replied. She hadn't expected that. The silver-haired boy that was undeniably Karlheinz's son didn't look at all like the youngest. That title still belonged very much to Kanato.

Kanato eyed her suspiciously, but when he didn't find anything he relaxed slightly, tension in his thin shoulders releasing. Grabbing a cup of pudding from the fridge, he joined her at the table with a delicate spoon and the dessert of his choice.

"Shu is the oldest, and then Reiji, and then it's us," he said, ensuring that she knew the order of age within the household with an almost obsessive light in his pale purple eyes. "Ayato, me, then Laito. Subaru is the youngest. Subaru. Not me."

Saya nodded. Odd that they cared about age when they had extraordinary longevity at their disposal. Also odd that none of them seemed to have matured, except perhaps Reiji.

Kanato wrinkled his nose when she took another sip.

"How can you drink that?" he asked, calm once again. "And without any cream or sugar, either. Coffee is so bitter. Not at all sweet."

She used to like it with handmade marshmallows given color by red ingredients, and their sweetness would easily balance out the bitterness. It used to clear her head in the times she found her head foggy and unsure. She had liked it dark and strong the way Fumito used to make it for her.

And even now, after she knew the truth of those memories, even after Kuroto had drugged her coffee just when she opened her heart again after all the betrayals and breaks, she reached out to draw support from its robust taste, to keep her awake through life's bitterness.

She could afford to indulge in what she wanted now. She deserved to, so near the end.

"You eat and drink for the memories, I guess," Saya said at last. Because after paying the price of her second wish and her vengeance, all she had left were the memories.

Always alone.

Kanato poked at his pudding – the same milky pink shade of color her _guimauves_ used to be, coincidentally – before pouting for whatever reason. Saya finished up her coffee, rinsed out the mug, and then retreated to her room.

* * *

"I've hoped so long for your return," Karlheinz admitted. "But I hadn't, I'm afraid, had the foresight to stock up on enough clothes for you."

Saya, getting used to her new haircut and the lack of the weight she had been accustomed to, eyed the racks of clothing brought in dispassionately. They were diverse in color and shape and materials, but had two things in common.

One, their luxuriousness.

Two, their size.

What appeared to be an entire store's worth of clothes, all expensive-looking and around her size, and he claimed this to be insufficient.

Karlheinz noticed where she looked and pulled the corners of his mouth down in a sorrowful expression.

"Are they not to your liking?" he asked, interpreting her stoic expression for that of disapproval. The other vampire in the room, brought in to help her with her clothes, bowed her head deeply as well, following the example of the king. "My apologies. They were the best I could do on short notice. Do not forgive your servant for his failure."

"It's fine," Saya said curtly. She did not trust him, because she _could_ not trust him. He had made it explicitly clear how she should treat him, lest she – less _they_ – ruin everything foolishly.

And yet he was her best chance and ally with shared interests, and Saya could not let him go, bound as they were by powerful magic ages old.

Irony was funny that way.

They picked out clothes and adjusted some uniforms from her new academy to fit her better. Saya stopped him from promising to send her more later on but had the sinking feeling in her gut that her words wouldn't keep him from bringing her a wardrobe large enough to clothe a small town.

She turned out to be right, unfortunately.


	6. 1-5: the last of a dying breed

part one: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

or

Saya, and life with the Sakamaki Brothers pre-Yui.

* * *

 _'Cause you're the last of a dying breed  
Write our names in the wet concrete  
I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me  
I'm here in search of your glory  
There's been a million before me  
That ultra-kind of love  
You never walk away from  
You're just the last of the real ones_

'The Last of the Real Ones', Fall Out Boy

"Excalibur, Durandal, Balmung." Karlheinz pointed carelessly at each legendary sword as if they were but knickknacks at a corner store. "Fragarach, Gram, Joyeuse. Hauteclere, Balisarda, Mistilteinn."

The armory was filled with more swords than the ones he pointed out, each finely crafted and honed, but the king was dramatic if nothing else and showed her the crown jewels of his collection first.

"All blades that helped cut the path to a new age," he whispered, enraptured in a sentiment that consumed him, had kept him walking the eternal life up to this point. "In the hands of a hero they brought down the norms and the old age and paved the way for a birth."

And so many of them also died. Heroes did not have happy endings, not like the fairytales would have one believe.

Saya almost reached out to the named blades but held back. Souls long since passed had left their imprint upon the sharpened metals, carved it with the blood of their enemies, the tears of their allies and the sweat of their effort.

"Not yet," she said instead. They were all swords that had been wielded by heroes, mortal heroes. All seeking to fight for a noble goal.

To stain the legacy of the blades with the blood of another goal was disrespectful, and in the end it mattered not the fame of her weapon.

All Saya needed was a sharp enough edge to draw blood. The name didn't matter.

She picked out a few swords without stories connected to them, finding their balance to be a good fit for her hand. Karlheinz accepted her decision without questioning it and did not give a second glance to the legendary blades he had collected over the years.

He did, however, have something to say to her regarding their possible necessity later on.

"The barriers have been weakened from the fluctuations in magic," he warned her. "Old friends may soon slip through for reunions, my lady."

The night of the lunar eclipse, his warning ended up becoming a reality.

* * *

"Hey, Rocket Boobs."

Almost reflexively, Saya swung her fist. It was half-hearted and slow at this point, and so Ayato ducked with ease. He didn't flee, not this time.

"Man, you didn't even try with that one," he complained. "Is your chest getting too fat for you to -"

The next moment, she was in front of him, and landing a solid kick into his solar plexus as his green eyes widened in surprise. No ribs broken – he had backed away to lessen the impact of the blow, and she hadn't pursued.

Ayato clutched at his chest with his empty hand, but he smirked. "Heh, white panties, didn't expect that from you."

Saya probably should have hurt him some more. But there was something curious about what he was holding in the hand not at his solar plexus that made her pause from breaking some of his bones.

"What do you want, Ayato?" she asked, eyes focused on the sword.

He revealed sharp teeth with an arrogant grin and lifted his hand to show off the western-style bastard sword in a leather scabbard. It was a good sword from what parts of it she could see, well cared-for and balanced, but it had not known enough blood. More importantly, its owner did not know how to wield a blade with true killing intent.

The only thing bloody about this proud boy was his hair, a shade of deep red with rust undertones.

"Yours truly wants a spar," he said, jerking one thumb to point at himself proudly. "You got your sword, I got mine, let's see who's better. And, before you refuse, we'll make it interesting."

She had been about to consider his suggestion, not reject it outright, but she wanted to hear what condition he would offer. "What is it?"

"I win, you tell me about what you did to that lazy bastard," Ayato demanded. "I thought he fought a polar bear or something in the Arctic because the bastard came back all bloodied and roughed up but didn't tell us anything about what happened and just went to sleep, the lazy fucker. I wanna hear just what actually went on up there."

The brothers really must not communicate very much with each other, Saya thought, for him to want to hear the details of their encounter from her rather than ask his older brother about it.

Good for her that they didn't know her full strength. Unnecessarily frightening them wasn't the goal, but she did need to make enough of an impact with them. They needed to take this – take _her_ – seriously.

"And if I win?"

He scoffed. Saya decided to accept the challenge just to show this arrogant child a thing about actually using a sword in battle.

" _If_ you win," Ayato said. "Yours Truly will answer any questions you might have."

That was hardly a prize. Saya didn't have any that he _could_ answer. Karlheinz would never have told his sons about his true intentions or motivations, and she couldn't imagine them knowing anything that could be of use to her. As for any superficial information he was likely to know, she wasn't interested.

But she had an arrogant boy she needed to teach a lesson to, and that was worth winning for. "Very well."

As they made their way to the gardens to fight, Saya estimated Ayato to be a relatively easy opponent. He had no poisons or acids to hinder her, no wings that would allow him an extra dimension of movement over hers, no method of manipulating the environment to his advantage like some of the Elder Bairns. He had no extraordinary size to give him extra protection from her, no familiars he would call to distract her and earn him split seconds.

All he had, she concluded as she drew her sword and let the scabbard fall from her fingers, were the gifts his birthright brought him. Strength, speed, magic, and the blessing of the night's darkness, when those of magic inherently grew stronger.

All of which had originated, though he didn't know it, from her. All fields that she was superior to him in.

Ayato would not stand a chance, even against her currently limited self.

Saya's assessment not only proved to be correct, but also to be an _over_ estimation of his talents.

He gave her a cocky grin as he unsheathed his own sword, blade glinting wickedly by the moonlight.

"You can go first," Ayato said magnanimously.

He gave her the first blow and she took it, darting forwards quickly. A strong downwards blow later and the sword had been knocked out of his hold. Before Ayato could recover or back up her blade was at his throat, ready to cut.

Even Saya was surprised at how easy it was. Shu had put up more of a fight – a better fight, that was. Or maybe that was because she had been tired and hungry at the time with nothing driving her other than hunger.

In better condition than she had at the Arctic and with something of a goal to continue for, Saya was a lot stronger.

She reassessed herself and adjusted her plans.

Ayato flushed in anger.

"That one didn't count," he raged.

And though Saya disagreed, she let him get another chance, this time with him having the first strike. It was not agreed upon verbally, but she would allow him to take it.

He was more serious this time, careful on his feet as he approached. His eyes were focused on her movements, and he had fewer openings for her to take advantage of.

It didn't matter. Speed and strength were both on her side, as was experience. She parried his blows, not letting them slide to the side but easily retaliating with matching force. The impact was like thunderclaps and she could feel the force of the blows through the vibrations they left on her palm.

Each clashing blow made Ayato falter in his stance, let her forcibly drive him back until his back was to the walls of the garden he had brought her to for their spar. His face was twisted with disbelief, as if this was not how he had imagined it going.

Still, he didn't use any magic. While she herself didn't – for reasons other than pride – it seemed he wanted it to be about strength and skill in swordplay, something Saya could respect.

She could respect it, but it wasn't advisable. Time to finish this and teach him that if he even wanted a chance at victory, he would need to give it everything he had and then some more.

Saya kicked, foot aimed high towards his face. He twisted his neck to avoid being smashed in the face with her heel and stabbed, intending on cutting her leg.

Too slow.

Her sword was there to intersect his before the sharp metal could bite into her skin, and with another thunderous clang of clashing metal threw Ayato's blade not only off-track, but also dislodged his grip. He held on, but barely, and was readjusting his grip when her leg, still in the air, changed directions.

One solid kick to the forearm later, Ayato's sword flew backwards, spinning several times before falling to the ground with a loud clatter. In a parody of the first 'sparring round', her sword was once again at his throat. His eyes widened in shock at the outcome.

"Yield," she told him without much force or enthusiasm. Ayato could struggle if he wanted. It wouldn't change the result at all, not right now. As he was at the present, he could challenge her a hundred times, and she would win always.

He scowled in anger and embarrassment, but he yielded. Over their heads, high up in the night sky, the moon leaked magic she could not yet manipulate as she once had. Saya felt something shift in the world as she returned the sword to the scabbard, but said nothing.

Whatever it was, it wouldn't matter, she thought at the time.

The call came after Saya exited the bath. Wrapped in a bath gown and drying her shoulder-length hair with a towel, Saya answered the only one who would contact her via her new phone.

 _"My lady,"_ Karlheinz said silkily. _"I'm sure you've felt the magic fluctuating."_

She had. Magic was a delicate balance of many things, layers and layers of intricacies bound by laws that could not be understood simply. To use magic was to exert sovereignty as a monarch, and there were laws for those higher up.

The moon had strong ties to those of darkness, and an eclipse that blocked out lunar light? A significant impact on the world's magic, and an opportunity for those seeking a distraction.

"Have the First Bloods broken out?" That was the only thing Saya could think of that might warrant him calling her for, to keep her informed about the last members of a dying race.

 _"The two remaining, yes."_

Saya had no worries about them being an unexpected threat to her. Until she used her magic her presence would be hidden, and she had no intention of revealing herself to them till it was necessary.

His next words, however, changed everything.

 _"But the Nephilim have also broken free of their prisons."_

She let the towel fall on her shoulders. For a moment it didn't matter that she was tired, or that she was doing everything she could to end it all.

Ancient duty and past killings came to life within her memory, long-gone battles where the demons fought against the giants born of atrocities and sealed them away coming to the front of her mind.

Precarious fallen creatures similar to her, relics of an age far gone that should have remained dead.

Karlheinz interrupted her train of thought. _"But it matters not, my lady."_

Something hot roared behind her throat, churning like an angry sea. How could it not matter, when her old foes were loose upon the world once more? She should be there, sword in hand, cutting giants whose heads scraped at the heavens and footsteps caused the grounds to tremor down to size. Lilith should be fighting, she should be protecting, she should be doing her duty –

 _"Kisaragi Saya,"_ Karlheinz cut her off, _"should be preparing for high school."_

The ghosts of old duty and habit haunting her were ripped away by the reality check, that she no longer had to step up. That she did not _want_ to step up, that she was working to accomplish something else entirely.

It was all so tiring. She let her arm fall limp at her side.

"Are you sure it's best if I stay here?" she asked. She had thought her spar with Ayato was nothing but play, but this whole farce was play. Perhaps it hadn't been the right time to indulge herself yet. She needed to get serious.

" _Of course your presence will be invaluable in a fight against them_ ," Karlheinz said to her, almost patronizing, and it annoyed her. _"As it always was and always will be."_

If only what he said was idle flattery instead of genuine belief, she might be able to brush it off more easily.

"And yet?" Saya asked, already guessing he had a reason for not wanting her to skip the farce to put down the escapees.

" _There are only two of them_ ," Karlheinz said, intentionally not mentioning the bigger problem and pretending to misunderstand the unstated subject of her question. " _They may be First Bloods and the race that founded other demons, but they are hardly a threat compared to you."_

"I'm not concerned about the First Bloods," she told him impatiently. The old enemy had broken free, because of her return. The founders of the Demon Realm's inhabitants and their last descendants weren't important.

Karlheinz hummed lightly on his end.

 _"Not yet,"_ he said cryptically. " _And have some faith in your servant, my lady. We can yet still handle ourselves against our ancient war friends without having to resort to seeking your help once more. Familiars can distract the giants and hold them off while the superior demons strike the fatal blow."_

A strategy used before, in the past, but it required large numbers and sacrifices. It was why she had been invaluable against the giants, she who was not affected by daylight or have her magic nullified when fighting them.

And yet, what did she care? She felt her eyes tremble from the conflict within her.

The Vampire King dealt the finishing blow with ease, striking on her indecision. _"Their king is dead,"_ he said, reminding her of her ancient, long-passed victory.

In the end Saya agreed to do nothing and not fight to protect as she always had. Change had to come, and the old had to make way for the new.

 _"You should worry more about the First Bloods,"_ he suggested. _"They may not know of your return or be able to track you down yet, my lady, but they will pursue the only woman they know of that can continue their blood status in their offspring, and inevitably they will run into you."_

"I can handle myself," she reminded him. First Bloods were nothing.

 _"Of course,"_ Karlheinz said smoothly. " _Sweet dreams."_

Saya hung up, and then tossed the phone somewhere on her bed.

Demons. Descended from the seven First Bloods that were born when the blood of the first traitor spilt upon the fragments of seven sins, walkers of darkness and wielding the magic of the moon, beautiful drinkers of blood that hunted the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve from the shadows.

Nephilim. Born from the cursed union of fallen angels and human women, giants mad and fierce, able to naturally resist magic with their birthright. Natural predators of humans and demons alike, but also a losing side that had long ago been sealed away after their king was slain.

And then there was her, the being who now went by the name of 'Saya'. With a different name she had been a progenitor and a slayer, of kin and kings.

It was no longer her weight to bear, Saya reminded herself, and closed her eyes, not even bothering to change from the gown into proper sleeping wear.

Sleep did not come for a long time.


	7. 1-6: don't know the half of the abuse

part one: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

or

Saya, and life with the Sakamaki Brothers pre-Yui.

* * *

 _All my friends are heathens, take it slow  
_ _Wait for them to ask you who you know  
_ _Please don't make any sudden moves  
_ _You don't know the half of the abuse_

'Heathens', Twenty One Pilots

Immature children, all of them, Saya thought as she made coffee. It tasted slightly off when she made it, not quite the same rich, robust brew it could be, but she could still taste the coffee's flavor and drink it hot, so Saya settled for the mix she had found in the kitchen, which lacked the richness altogether and barely qualified for what she considered coffee. Reiji was a tea drinker, and the look of utter contempt he had given her when she inquired about coffee in the household had been more than enough to let her know that they would never see eye to eye on their choice of caffeinated beverages. He would prefer his black teas, and she her coffee in the evenings to wake her up.

Coffee in the evening. The time of the Sakamaki residence was adjusted to the vampiric life, where the daytime was for slumber and nighttime when they were active. A former wanderer, Saya had no concerns or difficulties with adapting to such a lifestyle.

In the meantime, Subaru raged at having been made the errands boy for the crime of being the youngest.

"Why _me_ again?!"

"Because you're the youngest," Laito and Ayato chorused. Sometimes she marveled at the mystery of their being related to each other, but sometimes she could see it.

The pale-haired boy snarled in fury and smashed his fist down on the table. It did not break, though it shook and there was a protesting sound made in response to the blow. A strong, thick table carved out of fine quality wood, Saya thought, appreciating the furniture in the mansion. It would have to be, to even have a chance of keeping up with the abuse the residents put it through.

Although she had no room to talk, having contributed her share to destruction in the short time since she had arrived.

" _Someone_ will have to get the groceries," Reiji said, voice frigid with annoyance. "As I am the one doing all the cooking in this household, I refuse to do any more for you lot. Do your share, you useless idiots."

His words had exactly zero effect on his brothers, but made Saya pause in her observations of the brothers to think. Karlheinz, she had made a deal with. Spending his money was included in said deal, and so she felt no obligations towards that man other than what she had agreed to in their pact. The food, on the other hand, the food that she ate every meal, was cooked by Reiji.

They didn't need food, not really. More importantly _Saya_ didn't need food.

But she did prefer it. Blood was for sustenance, and food for the filling feeling that gave the illusion of contentment from habit. When she was hungry she became more likely to fall into depressing thoughts.

And, based on the call Karlheinz had made to her regarding the Nephilim's release, she was partially responsible.

Saya set down the cup, decision made.

"I'll go with him," she volunteered, and the Sakamki brothers all fell silent.

Well, until Laito spoke up, that was.

"Wow, Bitch-san, I didn't know our baby brother was your type," he simpered. "But do be gentle with him, he's still an innocent virgin-"

Saya didn't even have to punish him this time.

"Shut the hell up!" Subaru roared, and grabbed the mug from where she had set it down to throw it at his brother's head. The contents spilled over Ayato and Kanato on the way, and a four-way fight started immediately.

Saya mourned her lost coffee and peace as Reiji took a very calm look at the mess being made and Shu crept away before he could end up being pulled in as well. That had been the last of the mix coffee in this house.

At least she could pick some more up.

* * *

"Why are you here, anyways?"

For the life of her Saya couldn't tell what the difference between 1% and 2% milk was. There was literally a percent's worth of difference according to the labels, and surely it wasn't that significant when it came down to it.

No one in the household was fragile enough to die from a percent's difference in milk. Of that Saya could be certain even without really understanding what significance the percentages even held.

Still, she shouldn't make this decision by herself. Not when there was someone to consult regarding the matter.

"Which one should we get?" Saya asked, pointing to the cartons stocked in the refrigerator's shelves. They had the same brand and pictures and everything, it was just the number presented and the color used that was different. Even the price was the same, which didn't make much sense to Saya. Why differentiate, then?

Subaru scowled.

"Don't ignore me!" he hissed.

"I'm not. That's why I'm asking you for your opinion – which one should we get?"

He grabbed the 1%, though it looked more like he had snatched it up without even checking what he had chosen. But since Saya didn't know much about milk, she merely sighed and let him drop it into the cart.

"Why are you here, anyways?" Subaru repeated the question as they made their way to the eggs.

"Here, meaning the mart, or here in general, meaning the manor and with your family?" Saya asked for clarification. Was there a difference with brown and white eggs? Organic was probably better than not, right? It cost more, but it was Karlheinz's money, and he could afford it.

"The ma – both," he amended midway. "Both."

Fumito, when teaching her how to make _tamagoyaki_ , used white-shelled eggs. On a whim she chose the brown-shelled ones and hoped it wouldn't make egg rolls harder to make. Color meant nothing for egg quality, hopefully.

"I am here, at the mart, because of the point Reiji made," she said. A dozen eggs . . . were probably not enough. She let it sit in her hand for a few more seconds, taking in its weight, before replacing it with a pack of thirty eggs. That would probably be enough for a few days. But then again, Kanato said he liked pudding, and as far as Saya knew eggs were ingredients necessary for pudding. "If he cooks, then it makes sense for me to pull my share by picking up the ingredients."

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You don't need to eat." A probe to see what she was.

"But I like to." She didn't trip over it. "Besides, it seemed unfair for you to be the only one to go grocery shopping, and especially for the reason of being the youngest."

That, and part of the fault was with her. The usual familiars could not be spared for the venture because Karlheinz needed fodder for his strategy without her, and while the direct reason for the lack of servants was not known to the brothers Reiji had definitely noticed the absence of many familiars.

Subaru ran a rough hand through his hair.

"Liar," he muttered.

Saya didn't bother responding to that.

"As for why I am at the manor," she said. "Karlheinz sent me."

She could hear his teeth grind together.

"Damn bastard has some nerve," he muttered.

Indeed, Saya agreed. He did have quite the nerve, with what he had planned. A revolutionary that would stop at nothing to achieve his goal, no matter how many were burned by the flames of change.

But she was an accomplice and using the mad revolutionary for her own selfish desires at that, so she was hardly better off.

"Relax," she told him instead. "He's been clear to me that I should refrain from killing you all." He did, of course, give her permission to kill a few if they deserved it, but it was better to not mention that part yet.

"Hah!" Subaru barked out a harsh laugh. "Like you even could."

Saya eyed the cart.

"Should we have grabbed butter?" she asked, before they were out of the dairy section. "And yogurt?" And was that thin carton of milk really going to be enough? Should she grab another one? Maybe this time the 2% to cover her bases.

"You're not even fucking listening." This one was easily riled up. He hadn't given her reason to use force against him or tried attacking her again after the first time, but he lost his temper easily enough given some prodding.

"Of course I am. And of course I could." Yes, another carton of milk it was. And butter made things taste good, so that was also needed. "Please remember who it was that threw you across the room the first day I arrived."

Subaru was the one to initially give her the faint impression that the brothers cared for each other, rushing from the direction of where she now knew the gardens to be at the sound of marble floors cracking under the force of Ayato and Laito being smashed against them, and lunging at her as soon as he caught sight of what was going on in the lobby. It was a misconception that was cleared up soon enough, yet not entirely untrue.

Saya eyed him discreetly. The youngest, and perhaps because of it even in this dysfunctional family he got along with most of his brothers. Relatively.

"That was because I didn't see you coming," he snapped.

"Did Reiji want any cheese?" she wondered. Subaru had lost the shopping list, and now they were working off memory. If Reiji complained, then that was too bad. A good chef didn't blame his ingredients.

"Fuck, no."

She ignored his coarse language and took his word for it. After the dairy section there was the meat and fish. Bacon, chicken thighs and wings, and salmon were what she remembered. Subaru had nothing more to add.

It was when they arrived at the bakery that he spoke again. "Is it true?"

Saya sighed. Karlheinz was a con artist and a bastard who deserved to go to hell. This was not 'a little difficult', this was a family that didn't understand the importance of proper communication and made everything harder than it needed to be. "Be more specific."

The silver-haired boy that most resembled the king of vampires fidgeted, fingers twiddling slightly before he spoke. "That you beat Ayato in a swordfight."

Oh. That.

"Yes. Do you not talk to each other?" Ayato was a proud boy, and was likely to not go around broadcasting his loss everywhere, but asking her instead of his own brother?

Where Karlheinz wore his silver hair long and mysteriously framing his face, edges dyed a scarlet like they had been dipped in fresh blood, Subaru wore it short enough that no trace of the red showed anywhere except his fierce eyes. Where Karlheinz liked to wear layers to hide what he truly thought or felt, it showed all too easily on his youngest son's face.

Said face darkened. "Hell no."

Remembering how the morning had played out and how her coffee had been sacrificed in the conflict, Saya nodded in understanding. Perhaps she should be grateful that Fumito never gave her a sibling in the six scenarios he put her through between memory wipes.

One less bond to break her heart with, a part of her thought cynically. How kind of him.

Three loaves of French bread, two cakes and a tiramisu later, Saya looked over the rest of the items in the glass case. Nothing that particularly drew her eyes. No marshmallows of any kind.

Disinterested, Saya turned her attention back to the cart, now half-full.

"Just the fruits and vegetables now, I think," she said. "And then I want to get some coffee. Proper coffee."

Subaru grumbled under his breath but didn't protest. For all his short temper and cursing, he listened fairly well.

Only once they were done paying for all the groceries and in semi-privacy did he speak to her one last time.

"I hate that man," he said, eyes burning with rage. It wasn't as dramatic when he had an armload of groceries with bags hanging from both arms, but Saya was in the same position and hatred, true hatred could never be made petty so easily by plastic bags filled with produce. "I hate him more than anything in the world, and whatever he's up to with you, he can go fuck himself with."

This family had problems, to say the least. Saya spared just enough kindness to not say her words out loud.


	8. 1-7: sink of blood and crushed veneer

part one: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

or

Saya, and life with the Sakamaki Brothers pre-Yui.

* * *

 _Come on skinny love just last the year_  
 _Pour a little salt we were never here_  
 _My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my_  
 _Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer  
I tell my love to wreck it all_  
 _Cut out all the ropes and let me fall_  
 _My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my_  
 _Right in the moment this order's tall_

'Skinny Love', Bon Iver

Two weeks before school was to start, the residents of the Sakamaki mansion were called into a meeting.

Saya, the reason for it, felt a headache begin to start at the ruckus that inevitably came with more than one Sakamaki brother in the same location.

"Is this what usually happens?" she asked Reiji, who pinched the bridge of his nose as Laito was riled up by Shu tossing comments regarding his behavior, Kanato pestered Subaru who, in a foul mood at being dragged out of his coffin snapped back, and Ayato –

"'Sup, Rocket Boobs."

Didn't run, but did make himself a little annoying as usual.

"In general," Reiji said. Unfortunately, he also seemed far too accustomed to it. "Settle down."

"Yours Truly is seeing far too much of your ugly mugs," Ayato grumbled as Reiji passed out what appeared to be package of paper. Saya caught the black printing of her name on it and sighed.

"Pot calling the kettle black, much?" Kanato muttered, adjusting his grip on Teddy to better get ahold of his package and read what was on it. "'Kisaragi Saya'."

"Look at that, widdle Kanato-kun can read," Laito jibed, flipping the page. His green eyes narrowed as he skimmed the contents. "Is there a reason why we're going through Bitch-san's profile like some speed-dating pre-run? A bit late for that, I think."

"You're going through her profile," Reiji snapped, "because she will also be attending our school starting the new school year, and as she is our cousin on paper and lives with us it would be highly suspicious should we not know anything about her."

Laito leaned back and gave Saya a smirk.

"I know what I need to know," he drawled. "Her three sizes, her height, her-"

Saya sighed and then kicked Laito in his shin. There was a very satisfying sound, and he stopped talking.

"If the vulgarities are over," Reiji ground out. "Her backstory allows for us to not know much about her personally and explain why we aren't close."

The vague details had been discussed with Karlheinz before her coming here, but it was only now that she was seeing what her cover story was supposed to be. As Saya read her 'profile' along with everyone else for the first time, she began to think that the man had missed his calling as a dramatic writer, because her 'history' was outlandish to say the least.

"A mother who happens to be our father's half-sister that was taken off the family tree a long time ago because she married someone the family disapproved of?" Ayato questioned. "What Korean drama is this from?"

"You forgot that her parents died," Kanato pointed out. "When she was young. From a car accident – which is a bit boring, if you ask me."

"No one did. More importantly, 'raised by her paternal grandfather in a shrine at a small countryside town due to her weakness and frailty'?" Laito got the furthest of the triplets, and he lightly skimmed his lips with the tip of his tongue as he made eye contact with her. "Will you be cosplaying as a shrine maiden for us, Bitch-san?"

Partly worried that she may have to do exactly that, Saya gave a quick scan over the first page of her profile again. Seeing no mention of herself being the shrine maiden in the scenario, she relaxed a bit.

His brothers focused on something else.

"'Weakness and frailty'?" Subaru repeated in disbelief. He hadn't read through the papers, but at those words he finally flipped through the page. "What the fuck? In what world?"

"From anemia." Shu set down the package, eyes disinterested. "Ironic."

Laito flipped to the next page, engrossed in the contents of the profile.

"And now that her grandfather's passed away from old age and Sakamaki Tougo, her half-uncle is head of the family, he brought his 'poor, sickly niece' into the family to support her, both with her health and with love and affection. Aww, Bitch-san," he cooed. "If you were lonely you were always welcome to come to my room."

Saya ignored him and flipped some pages. She was to be nineteen, and her excuse for being held back a year was due to the combination of her frailty and the stress from losing her grandfather.

She felt her face crumple slightly in annoyance.

"He expects me to act sickly and weak?" she muttered. The original concept he mentioned before sending her to the manor had been that she would have recovered from sickness, not for her to act weak and frail enough to have missed a year of school.

What was that even supposed to look like?

Ayato caught sight of her face and burst out into loud guffaws.

"Holy shit," he gasped out, clutching at his abdomen as he rolled around in uncontrollable laughter. "Holy shit."

"We're not done, moron," Reiji said, but he was ignored.

"Bitch-san, are you feeling faint?" Laito giggled. "You're more than welcome to rest in my arms, anytime. I'm sure we can find some ways to get you perky soon enough."

"Bet she'll end up blowing her cover in a day," Ayato said, laughter subsided, though the mirth was undeniably thick in his voice.

The sad thing was, Saya was also unconfident in her abilities to act frail and weak. Even when her memories had been sealed she was always healthy. Clumsy, yes. Weak? Never.

She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ears, trying to think of ways to act weak convincingly. Weak and ill . . . she would need to . . .

. . . need to visit the school doctor frequently. Dr. Reinhart. Better known as the Vampire King in disguise who really should have had something better to do with his time.

Saya crushed the paper in her grip. "That son of a bitch."

The smile slipped from Ayato's face. "Did you just swear?"

"Bitch-san, such language," Laito purred, though his eyes were keen as they searched her face for something. "I didn't know you had it in you! Show your naughty side more often, yes?"

She took a deep breath. Now was not the time to lose her temper, not when the object of her rage and the cause wasn't present.

"I assume," she said tightly to Reiji. "That I am to be in your class?"

He nodded. "In case you require assistance, though I would greatly appreciate it if you weren't a bothersome burden."

In other words Saya was pretty much on her own. Shu would also be in the same class, but she had no expectations for him to help her in any way.

Saya sighed. Being put into high school pretending to be human when her memories were returned while an ancient foe wandered loose was bad enough but this?

"I knew this was a bad idea," she grumbled. This was just downright insulting.

"Aww, Bitch-san's embarrassed."

The vehemence in her glare made even Laito flinch this time.

* * *

"Why, exactly," Saya demanded later in the privacy of her room as soon as she picked up the phone. "Am I an ill girl?"

Karlheinz had the nerve to laugh out loud, and she gritted her teeth.

"If this is for your amusement," Saya began, because if this cover story really was just so he could have an excuse to make fun of her she –

She what?

What could she do to him without losing more in return? And more importantly, what did it matter?

She was overreacting over nothing, Saya realized belatedly.

 _"It's more for the sake of making an excuse,"_ he explained. His explanation sounded more like an excuse to her, but Saya listened nonetheless. " _This way, should you miss classes for whatever reasons, it can be justified more easily."_

"I could have always broken a bone or something," Saya protested, even as the fire had suddenly died out. Still, it was true, and a better alternative than relying on her acting skills to pull off a 'sick, frail' girl. Acting clumsy . . . she probably could have done that, having played a role like it however unknowingly once upon a time. She could be physically fit and still careless enough to be injured frequently. As for using injuries as an excuse, that was nothing. She could break something for real, get the doctor's note and then let it heal all the while using it as an excuse.

The non-man on the other side of the line sighed, almost in disappointment but not quite. Saya couldn't place the emotion immediately.

" _You could have,"_ he agreed, voice heavy and solemn. " _But that would require you to be in pain_."

Sorrow. That's what the emotion was.

Saya carefully did not say anything for a while, and only spoke once her voice was surely steady. He made it difficult, sometimes. "Ridiculous."

Pain was nothing new to her. One of her greatest weapons was her ability to heal from anything without even a trace of the wound remaining on her body, as if it had never happened.

Pain was but a constant companion in her long life, the only constant other than herself.

And she wanted it to end, because she was tired of it.

" _Perhaps, but you deserve better."_ He sounded matter-of-fact. More importantly he sounded genuine and honest, brutally open _. "You always did, but especially now."_

Saya's fingers tightened around the phone, but not enough to break it. She still had that much control. She shouldn't have let the conversation turn to this, should have led it down a different path. She should have demanded to know why her false birthday was listed as the first of April – it was too on the nose, too cheeky.

She shouldn't have let his words affect her so much, shouldn't have let it shown.

There were a lot of things Saya should have done.

"I'm hanging up," she said. She didn't wait for an answer this time and chose the cowardly route of avoiding emotional confrontation.


	9. 1-8: towards the end of time

part one: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

or

Saya, and life with the Sakamaki Brothers pre-Yui.

* * *

 _The eternity she was granted_  
 _At the end of having lost the one she loved_  
 _And destroyed what was precious_  
 _It brought her nothing but emptiness_  
 _The sorceress who obtained everything_  
 _And lost it_  
 _What does she wish for?_  
 _What does she search for?_  
 _Towards the end of time…_

'Chrono Story', Mothy

The weather was dramatic as the new Eve finally arrived. Just as she stepped out of the car, the grey clouds hiding the sky from sight finally became too heavy to bear their weight and released their contents upon those unfortunate enough to be standing below.

Even from the distance between the gate and the window she stood by, Saya's sight was sharp enough to pick out details. Pale golden hair tipped with the slightest shade of pink, eyes like well-polished and cut kunzites, a slight body and fair complexion, the girl turned a worried gaze on the large mansion, seemingly intimidated by the sheer size of her new residence and hesitant, like she was unsure of whether this was truly the place she was meant to be at.

Komori Yui, as she was named, looked like a young girl that artists would love to have as a model for the epitome of innocence. An ingénue, if she recalled correctly.

A lamb being pushed into the midst of hungry, feral wolves, Saya thought, thoughts turning a bit gloomy as the skies themselves seemed to mourn and weep at the sacrifice. The concept of a Shrovetide existed even here. Set aside as one of the humans offered up as per the agreement between humans and demons demanded, she was part of the tithe of lives sacrificed to keep those of the dark from feeding without restraint on mortals, and singled out by a king who had plotted for centuries.

Saya looked at the girl, approaching what could very well be hell for her. Despite what Karlheinz said and seemed to think, idealizing human emotions the way he did, Saya knew what it could do, leaving one feeling as poor and as weak as the most pathetic life forms. Just how much the loss could hurt, how it scraped away everything of worth and left one feeling incredibly empty, terribly scarred.

All they shared in emotion was the overwhelming exhaustion, however, and that was what drove them to their desperate measures.

"Hello, Eve," she whispered. There were many things she could have said. No one was listening, after all, and her heart was a mess of tangled emotions. She was tired, she found emotions stirring up in bothersome ways at the sight of a human approaching her dark destiny, and she was old, too old.

There were many things she could have said. She could have apologized, she could have expressed gratitude, she could have wished the poor girl luck.

"Welcome, my future murderer," Saya said, though no one could hear her say it. Words were powerful, binding things, and she who was bound by her own words from a long time ago, wished very much for her words now to come true.

* * *

Though it wasn't widely known, there were two forbidden fruits in the garden. One was the fruit of good and evil, and it opened the eyes of those that devoured its flesh. The other was the fruit of life, and it granted a glory that the newly created lives weren't yet prepared for to those who swallowed its seeds.

Eve and Adam ate the fruit of good and evil, and thus they learned what was right, and what was shameful. For their sin their punishment was to be exiled from the garden, to live a life of pain and suffering as would all humans.

Lilith ate the fruit of life, and the resulting immortality she received from its consumption in itself was her punishment. To prevent the glory not yet ready to be given from spreading, she lost her womb and was sent to roam the night, exiled to the land of twilight that was irregular and unstable. No children of hers, directly born from her with her gifts, would be able to proliferate.

Her blood, however, granted the vigor of the forbidden fruit, gave life to what it fell on when combined with her first tears. From the fragments of the sins, a byproduct of the Original Sin that emerged from the corpse of Eve, seven lives with imitations of her power were born.

Superbia. Ira. Avaritia. Invidia. Gula. Luxuria. Acedia.

They were her original companions, they were the first of the demons that would go on to become the founders of all demons, those that were of the darkness.

They were the original First Bloods, born from the sins of a woman tempted and the blood of her equally tempted sister, and from them began the eternal night.

And as for Lilith, their progenitor, their superior, their leader – she became known as the first night, for she was the very start to the darkness and those who lived within its shadowed folds, and the night had never been so cruelly beautiful or lurking with terrors until her.

* * *

"Her name is Komori Yui. Adopted and raised by a priest who also was quite the vampire hunter in a church, she had the heart of a First Blood since she was a babe."

* * *

"Sister!" Eve's anguished cry ripped through the darkness. "Lilith!"

There was no one in sight, not even the woman's husband – and yet, out of the dark of the shadows cast by moonlight's occlusion stepped out a woman hauntingly and inhumanely beautiful. Hair as pitch-black as the night swayed and tickled at the back of her knee as she strode forwards, a pale and bold figure cuttingly contrasted in the dark. She wore ragged clothes at the insistence of her sister, but even such poor garbs failed to hide the shapely limbs or flawless stretches of pearly skin.

Eve threw her arms around the woman, weeping. Lilith caught her body and supported the larger woman as she sobbed. One hand, bloodless, rose to cup Eve's face.

"What is it?" she whispered, face devoid of concern or tears despite her words. "What makes you cry?"

Lilith had eaten the fruit of immortal life and digested its eternity, not that of good and evil. Her eyes were not yet open to the very concept, and her emotions were still undeveloped and immature. All she knew, she had learned from her sister and as of now all she could do was copy her.

"Abel," Eve said between gasps. She who had once been so beautiful and young now wore the traces of time on her face, with creases in her skin like crow's feet at the edge of her wet eyes and greyed strands in her head. "Cain."

Lilith, with the patience of a being who had nothing but time at her disposal, waited to hear the full story from the devastated woman. Heard how brother had slain brother out of jealousy. How she had lost both sons, and the loss was terrible, far more than when they had been vanished from Eden.

But even her patience did not grant her full understanding of loss and what it felt like.

"It will be fine," Lilith said slowly. Emotions not fully matured or capable, she emulated what Eve with her knowledge of good and evil had tried to teach her. Lacking in understanding, the well-intended words did more harm than good. "You have another one."

She pointed to Eve's abdomen, where her womb held another beginning life.

* * *

"She's quite special, and not just because of the heart. She's spiritually sensitive, the type to see and be affected by those who are associated with the abyss, especially ones without corporeal bodies. Poltergeists, ghosts, the likes."

* * *

Eve clutched tightly to Lilith's hands. The force was remarkable for the woman, who was not very strong, and yet it could not hurt Lilith who was not human.

"Promise me, sister," she begged the first night, the queen of demons. In that moment it did not matter that Eve was a mortal human, a soul destined to eventually perish naturally, and Lilith something more, the first of those that lived in the dark's perpetual embrace seizing and defying the laws of reality at their whim. "Promise me that you won't hurt my sons, either of them."

She begged for her eldest son, the first slayer of kin who she had wept over and still loved. She begged for her third son, born after a tragedy and made the center of Eve's world and pinnacle of hope by existence alone. She begged so that she might not see them buried before she became ashes and dust.

Death was not her exclusive weapon, as Eve's first son had more than proven with his own blood-stained hands, and yet Lilith, for all her incapability to realize her own emotions, could not deny Eve. She did not know how.

It was love, or as close to love as an innocent young creature that followed her instincts and did not understand the difference between good and evil could feel. It was love, however unknown it was to Lilith who would not love even her own seven 'children'.

"I promise, Eve," she said, knowing enough to understand that Eve, in her emotional state, was in need of comfort and affirmation. Lilith did not know much or understand emotions the way those who had eaten the fruit of good and evil did, but Eve was special to her, however unknowingly. "I will not harm your sons."

Eve's eyes, swollen from the tears she had shed, searched Lilith's for confirmation. Tragedy had shaken her very fundamental self, left her mourning and uncertain and in desperate need of comfort and support.

"Swear it?" she insisted. "On your name?"

"On my name, Lilith," the night monster who had no reason to harm anyone unless it was to feed herself replied. "I will not drink from your children."

Unknowingly to both women, Lilith awakened the magic within her that day by invoking her name and an oath, and the first magic she cast bound her with invisible ties stronger than anything else. From then all, none that claimed themselves as a son of Adam or daughter of Eve would be harmed by the first night. Even centuries later, when the emotions of the exchange were long faded and memory no longer strong enough to let her recall what her sister had looked like, what her voice had sounded like, Lilith, no matter what name she took on, no matter what shape she wore, could not drink the blood of a human.

* * *

"She will be the Eve to the new age of demons, those who can use magic and have the heart of humans."

* * *

The Land of Twilight, where even the boundaries of time and space, and sometimes reality itself was unstable due to the magic that made up everything and all the conflicting forces within it was never quiet or peaceful. The word 'peaceful' in itself implied that the forces residing inside could coexist, which was simply untrue.

The Nephilim, born from the traces of fallen angels inside the children of Adam and Eve, were giants of various sizes who made themselves unloved and banished by preying on humans with no discrimination or subtlety. Even the worst of the demons paled in comparison to the ruckus left behind whenever the Nephilim moved to hunt and breed. Due to their origins, despite their mad cruelty and diet the Nephilim were of the light by blood – and inevitably, natural enemies of those residing in the dark.

The realm where the skies were always like that of twilight was therefore inevitably always busy with war, for the two opposing sides would not stop until the other was wiped out. It was always loud, but sometimes Lilith closed her eyes and pretended it was. She did so now, letting her hair flutter carelessly, ends dragging in spilled blood and becoming stained as she leaned against the fallen corpse of the latest giant she had slain. The Nephilim only got bigger and uglier with each passing generation, unlike her demons.

Bigger and uglier, but still hardly a threat to her, she who was the apex predator and feasted upon the blood of the fallen Nephilim.

"Lady Lilith," said Ira, the last of the original seven to still be alive and stand at her side. The rest had died, either in battle or by her hands, at their request. As their progenitor and leader she had granted it gladly and drained them of their blood.

She did not bother opening her eyes. "Report."

"The Nephilim have retreated." She could hear him grin, and imagined it to be as feral as his usual cruel, sadistic smile. The last of the original seven 'children' to remain alive at her side, for it was the lust for battle, the instinctive rage against anything that kept him alive, gave him a purpose in their immortal lives, Ira was the closest to her out of all living demons, and knew her best. Even now he vibrated, waiting for the next words to fall from her lips.

Lilith sighed in the closest emotion she could get to contentment. She was full, she was victorious, and she was strong.

But _was_ she content?

No.

She could never be content. She would be content when she died – and as an immortal, that would never happen.

"Retreat?" she finally opened her eyes, blazing blood-red, and swept her hair back with a bold movement. The tips were wet with blood, but the pitch-black of her hair swallowed even the bright sanguine. "I don't remember allowing such a thing."

Ira's smirk grew even bigger. He threw his head back and howled, and the children of the seven howled back in return.

It was time to hunt.

In a realm fluctuating from powerful beings clashing, where time meant nothing and magic filled the air, monsters fought each other gleefully, creatures who had abandoned and were abandoned by higher beings tearing into each other and spilling blood.

The ideal hunting grounds for Lilith. But not the ideal place, by far, for her to learn of love or loss.

* * *

Karlheinz smiled, beautiful and yet bitter, elegant but tired. "Unlike me."

* * *

Eventually, as all things must, the war of the banished creatures came to an end, and the Nephilim were defeated. An epic last battle of seven days and seven nights left even Lilith exhausted and battered, but the victor in the historical clash between the queen of demons and the king of the giants.

She ordered the remaining numbers of their old enemy sealed away in the abyss at the edges of the Land of Twilight, and buried them alive. Above their burial site she left the corpse of their defeated king, and his blood stained the ground red and left the air above full of poisonous miasma.

After centuries of war against the giants, Lilith had emerged victorious. There were none that were as powerful or as strong as she was that walked these realms, and she had proven it.

But in her arrogance Lilith had missed one detail – that till now, the Nephilim had been her primary source of blood. Humans, fearing those of the night for their unearthly beauty and strength, had claimed themselves as the children of Adam and Eve – and that definition was enough, by the oath she had sworn without fully understanding, to put her under a compulsion and prevent her from hunting humans.

It was fine, Lilith thought during the warring period, as she butchered the giants. Despite their unnatural births, or perhaps due to the circumstances of their conception, of traces of angels taking roots in humans and growing to bear the terrible fruit that was the Nephilim, they never seemed to decrease in number until she slew their king and sealed the remaining giants away.

Once they were gone, however, she had to turn to feeding on the nearest non-human entities. She worked her way through those who requested death at her hands, no desire left in them to continue living, but demons by nature proliferated slowly, and their numbers were always low compared to humans by virtue of their immortality.

Lilith sustained herself by drinking from Ira and the First Bloods closest to her, little by little. Without the war against the Nephilim, the Demon Realm was able to develop on the land it had been fought on. The First Bloods, children of the Original Seven, established themselves as the highest in rank, after her, and the superior race descended from them, born from the blood of darkness mingling with the spirits of four animals that she granted her blessing to, proved themselves worthy of the next highest. The miscellaneous minor, lesser demons, barely capable of proper cognition or logic she did not bother herself with.

Every day, she lived, drinking blood and amusing herself with whatever caught her fancy. Life, Lilith lived whimsically, sometimes clashing with Ira and his underlings in a fight and winning, sometimes using her blood to control minor demons into amusing her, sometimes sneaking into the human world to observe the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, creatures she could not feed from but meant little otherwise to her.

But eventually even Lilith grew lethargic, and found immortality to be a burden.

All superior demons who knew not the feeling of time slipping out to a countdown of death, given enough time, came upon enervation eventually. The first to have come upon the empty futility of an existence with no natural progressive end was Acedia, and she requested that her creator give her the honor of becoming a part of Lilith with her death. Lilith had granted the last wish, draining her faithful companion of her blood, and from then on it had become tradition for those of the night wishing death to come to her. An end to the ennui granted by the first night, for the first night, to become a part of the first night was an honor and a more than acceptable way to end their listless existence to the demons, who instinctively felt the superiority of Lilith's darkness to their own. Two of the original would follow their sister's lead, ending their lives of their own choice and Lilith's hands before the fight ended theirs.

Here, then, was the problem. To where – to whom – did Lilith the first night, the immortal, the queen of demons go to for her end?

* * *

"And unlike both of us, theirs will not be a race that bears the weight of eternity and stagnation."

* * *

Her plan to take her own life not only failed, but also ended up with the massive destruction of much of the demon realm and a massacre that took even the life of Ira.

Unable to die and now more a threat than a guardian necessary against the long-gone Nephilim, the remaining First Bloods and the leaders of the superior demons came to a consensus –

That the queen was a traitor. That she needed to be banished, not just from their realm but also their world.

Lilith could not die, or be sealed away for long for magic obeyed the one of superior rank, and there was none in the Demon Realm that was higher than she was. The only way to be rid of her was to push her into the dimensions like a prisoner being forced to walk the plank into the ocean.

* * *

"The legacy of the forbidden fruit that granted immortality will end with us as the new age is born."

* * *

A young prince of the vampires witnessed the exile at the side of the queen of vampires. He saw her, a slight woman with eyes that had no life in them. Chained in heavy metals imbued with intricate spells, the First Bloods themselves escorted her on both sides down the path to the magic circle. She did not protest or fight against their leading her, nothing but dejection and tiredness in her face.

She almost appeared to be a lifeless doll painted to be sad, and yet there was something heartbreakingly beautiful in her, beyond the expected allure of those that flourished in the dark. For the first time in his life, the prince felt his heart stir, stimulated by an emotion he had not known or been taught before.

With wide red eyes he watched as the First Bloods – the noblest, it was said, who rarely did anything by their own hands – beheaded her and removed her limbs using a silver blade that shone like the coldest of ice in the light of the full moon.

There was no fear, no struggle, just acceptance. And even so, with wounds that should have killed even those of the darkness, her body struggled and moved with life.

Before the pieces could bind together once more and revive the first night, the spells were cast, and a path into a dimension different from theirs opened. It was not the rainbow bridge that would take heroes into the realm of the gods, but a gaping hole into an abyss, much like the one she had thrown her old enemies into once upon a time.

The bloodied chunks of flesh and bone were hurriedly thrown without fanfare, and that was the end of Lilith, an end so inappropriately pathetic for someone like her.

Or, it would have been.

* * *

"And we will die, at last."

Because the old had to make way for the new, and the time for the eternal night to end was long overdue.

* * *

The then-prince made a wish, that one day the queen he had fallen in love with in that short moment would be able to return when she was alone, truly alone. In return he paid with his ability to love anything or anyone else, and became an anchor to the exiled Lilith.

When she finally returned, a very long time later under a different name and long since changed by all that she had seen and experienced, he had long since become the king of vampires, and the most powerful creature in the demon realm. And the time was more than enough for him to have grown weary and plotted for an end to his existence.

Karlheinz, recognizing a fellow kindred soul exhausted from the weight of an unending time, offered her the chance to finally end the night.

Once upon a time she was Lilith, arrogant and proud and vicious. Once upon a time she had been banished, lost her name and her roots and her world and wandered, lost in more ways than one. Once upon a time she was hurt over and over and over again, until finally it was too much and she found herself alone, truly alone.

Saya, once Lilith, returned to her world with her spirit tired and broken and far different from the creature she had been before the exile. She remembered, yes, but barely – just the names, with blurry faces and vague recollections of what they had been like. Eve was a memory that stirred nothing, the original seven were alive in her only by name and nothing else. They, only by virtue of having been the first ones to be with her, stayed alive in her memory as pale shades. Even those that had betrayed her were nameless and faceless in her recollections – because time washed them away.

All she remembered was the hurt, the memory of being used and betrayed repeatedly –

But those pains had been dull.

And now Saya, with memories of a happy Kisaragi Saya vibrant and a vengeful self, left with nothing but ashes was back to being hurt and tired. It hurt even more, because in the short time her memories had been sealed she had known happiness, and pain was relative. To be given that sweet, warm time, however short it was, before abruptly being plunged into the blood-stained pain was torture, and became the straw that broke the camel's back.

Lilith had not known love, and so loss had not hurt her as much. Saya, who had known and understood love, finally and truly understood loss. Combined with the overwhelming weight of eternity and her wounds, she just wanted it to all stop.

What Karlheinz offered her was too sweet a temptation to resist, and she agreed just like Eve had bitten into the forbidden fruit all that time ago.

A new Adam, a new Eve. A new era. An end to the old.

How could something rise anew if it had not first become ashes?

They would die, at the hands of the progenitors to the new era. And with them would die the last of an age, and so end the eternal night.


	10. Interlude: Sakamaki

interlude: Sakamaki Brothers

or

Impressions of Kisaragi Saya

* * *

The drug's effects kicked in, and Ayato crumpled his face.

"You bastard," he hissed, clutching at his stomach, where the takoyaki laced with his latest creation was likely sending his insides on a rampage.

Reiji eyed his half-brother dispassionately. "I would recommend you hurry," he suggested in a mild tone of voice. "Otherwise you'll make quite the mess."

Ayato left, cursing him the entire way. He would probably try for retribution later on, but Reiji considered this experiment to be payback for the time he broke his third-favorite cup.

Personal vengeance aside, the experiment was a success, and that was what irked Reiji. His drug had worked the way it was supposed to.

The way it hadn't on the newest resident of the manor was odd, but it was hardly the first drug to fail exerting its effects on Kisaragi Saya. Every meal she consumed since her second day was laced with his drugs, and yet showed absolutely no signs of being affected despite an increase in dosage. She spent most of her time in her room, but some of the concoctions brought out symptoms that couldn't be hid.

Either she was very good at not showing signs of pain on her face . . .

. . . or his drugs had no effect on her at all.

Reiji thought of the coldly tranquil face, beautiful but devoid of emotions most of the time like a maiden carved out of ice from the legends of old. She was strong, more than enough to retaliate against Laito and Ayato, but he sensed no magic stirring within her. Her eyes flashed red, and switched her demeanor from maiden of snow to predator, but Reiji doubted that was her fullest capacity. She drank blood from the supply delivered for her consumption, but only those set aside for her specifically, ones that tasted of non-human origins when he had checked. Ghouls, probably, based on the lack of inherent magic, but non-human nonetheless.

His lips curled up. If he was to specifically define his view of her, he would label it as somewhat positive. Anyone that beat the good-for-nothing senseless or punished the crude language of his redheaded brothers would inevitably earn points in his books, regardless of their mysteriousness.

Just enough for him to not press her regarding her place in the household and her lack of a significant contribution yet. In the meantime, he would continue trying different drugs on her, testing what might have an effect. Tasteless poisons were coming up on the list soon enough.

* * *

Out of all his brothers, Laito liked to think of himself as the smartest. Not book-smart – that was Reiji, with all his meticulous methods, or Shu, despite his laziness. What Laito meant was the smarts that came with interactions – reading others. Any idiot with eyes and a half-functioning brain could read letters and make sense of their meaning, but it took a true master to realize the unwritten and unsaid, the subtle ticks and the body language and read what was hidden behind the windows of the soul.

It was why despite the pain she inflicted on him Laito kept prodding at Kisaragi Saya. She was a pretty little thing, yes, practically built to fall into someone's arms and charm their pants off if she only endeared herself a little more, but she held herself in the way those who were confident and born to step on others did. Something innate that gave her a superiority she breathed and exuded naturally because it was just obvious, a fact that she could destroy the world without batting her pretty dark lashes. A _je ne sais quoi_ , so to speak, something that could not easily be described by mere words alone.

And yet there was a death of the spirit, in a way.

If her strength gave her the air of a natural predator at the top of the food chain, then her eyes were that of a person climbing to the top of a mountain so she could throw herself off the cliff.

He saw how Saya hesitated – not out of moral obligation or anything as petty and hypocritical like that, no, but because she was calculating something. He saw no enjoyment, no pleasure derived from inflicting pain upon others, as if the entire thing was nothing but a chore for her. Laito, from all the times he poked at her for her reactions, figured it was because she wanted to scare them. Prove herself as superior to them.

He licked his wrist to speed up the healing. Saya preferred the method of crushing his wrist or kicking his leg. Sometimes she would land a blow on his abdomen and knock the wind out of his lungs. Simple and effective ways to keep him from doing something, at least for a short period of time.

No torture, no pleasure derived from pain, no serious harm. Eyes that didn't care, deliberately exerting her strength as a show, and a very boring habit of mostly staying hidden in her room as if she was Subaru or something. No efforts to endear herself to any of them.

"Bitch-san," Laito said aloud, though no one was in hearing distance. He let his fingers flutter lightly against his stomach, as if they were playing the piano. "Are you trying to make yourself our enemy?"

Vampires always had enemies. Demons ruled by strength, and the power balances were things to be toppled and overthrown, challenged and defended. Enemies were nothing new, and the protocol to which they were treated with did not change either. Enemies were to be dealt with. It was how the vampires had become the strongest of the demons, how they had maintained their standing as such.

But an enemy like Kisaragi Saya, whose goals didn't make sense and didn't align with her emotions were rare. Suicide by cop – a way to prod them into eventually labelling her as something to get rid of. If he approached it from that angle, then everything fit.

Except no, it didn't. She knew their father, and Karlheinz was the god of the realm in which demons lived. She could have always asked him, instead of his weaker sons. Which meant their father was up to something, and she was the tool he was using.

Laito ran over what he knew of her physical attributes, the ones that caused him pain rather than visual pleasure, and drew the conclusion that there were still questions unanswered. No changes in his future behavior, then. He still needed to push her buttons, see what made the doll-like woman react.

He drew his lips up into a smirk. It was always so fun, watching her eyes for the brief flare of irritation to set things into motion. The resulting pain was a minor price to pay for that sight.

* * *

In this household, just about the only kindness and consideration the brothers showed was sometimes respecting each other's habits, at least in action since words were fair play. Reiji called Shu a 'good-for-nothing', probably more times than he ever called him by his actual name but made no attempt to destroy his MP3 player and rob him of his musical escape. No one touched Kanato's dolls – mostly because they were creepy as fuck, but they didn't because they were Kanato's thing. Laito could go around being a pervert and no one stopped him, just told him to stop doing it in public because no one wanted to see that, you colossal pervert.

Subaru could stay in his coffin and most of the time, they wouldn't disturb him. They would make fun of him, of that there was no doubt, and it pissed him off when they did because they always did, but they mostly left him alone to stay in his coffin, maybe understanding that he needed his time in a trance to keep himself somewhat sane.

In one of the moments that he wasn't deep in contemplation while in the safety of his coffin, just on his way to return to the enclosed space from the rose garden, Subaru first ran into Kisaragi Saya, methodically beating the shit out of Laito and Ayato on her first day at the manor.

She was a tiny thing that looked like she couldn't hurt a fly, and while his brothers weren't bodybuilders they were also far taller than she was – and they were getting their asses kicked by her. Ayato lunged, fist ready to swing, and she would merely twist out of the way before swinging her body fully around in a turn and using the momentum to drop an ax-kick down on his shoulder, hard enough to send Ayato onto his knees like that was where he belonged. Then she threw herself to the side just as Laito leapt at her, and raised her arm to block the surprise blow Ayato aimed at her face before grabbing the leg that missed her head and throwing him like a hammer right at Laito.

It was almost like watching a well-choreographed fight, with how smoothly she moved, not even breaking a sweat or showing signs of strain. Every movement was swift and efficient, a dance to the sound of punches and kicks.

They didn't get along well, most of the time. There was too much between them, not all of it started from them but rather inherited from their mothers, and while most of them liked to disavow themselves of the expectations that had been pressed to them from a young age by women who were now dead or about as good as dead, the ghosts were still there influencing the way they acted, the way they were. Too many sharp edges to fit together well.

They didn't get along well, most of the time. But at the end of the day they did – sometimes rather unfortunately – share blood, and they were brothers.

Besides, having an invader in the house was a problem for all of them, especially if said invader could hold her own against two pure-blooded vampires.

Subaru joined the fight to tip the scales in their favor – and was properly trounced as well. Two or three, it didn't make a difference except in the number of bodies that hit the ground. She didn't even bat an eye at his joining, just greeted him with a swift kick to his abdomen after throwing her head back to avoid his fist before jumping, using his face as a springboard and flipping her body in a mid-air somersault to land a double kick on his back.

The impression he received from the small woman as she took all three of them on and smashed them into the ground with enough force to create craters where they landed was that she didn't care. It wasn't just her face that was tranquil and blank as she waited for them to charge at her again – it was her eyes, round and dark grey and heedless to everything. Like they were nothing. Like she held no attachment to anything, herself included.

And yet she had the nerve, when he asked days later, to pretend that she cared about fairness, or about how he was treated. When her eyes were so nihilistic and indifferent to it all.

That she had a connection to Karlheinz also infuriated him. That man, the one responsible for leaving his mother a broken woman was always up to something. Karlheinz involving himself with another girl, broken in a different way –

Whatever that man was up to, it couldn't be good. Subaru made his feelings clear to Saya.

Saya said nothing to his warning, only gazed upon Subaru with those dark indifferent eyes that left him feeling small and powerless and furious, though he wasn't sure if his emotions was directed to her or himself.

* * *

Kanato considered himself a sensitive soul. Out of all his brothers, he was the most open to the spiritual aspect of the Demon Realm, more in-tune with the presence of spirits. Shades of the dead or the demonic couldn't usually dare to exert themselves around pureblooded vampires like them, but Kanato could read them fairly easily, and occasionally called them out to do his bidding.

Kisaragi Saya, as she was introduced, wore a long legacy of something. Countless dead, like she had created a mountain of corpses and rivers of blood just so she could sit upon it like it was a throne and enjoy the view.

It was not what he read, but what he didn't that told him this. The lack of anything, the silence that fell around her. Even around them there were the occasional whispers, in awe of the scions of the vampire god and feeding off the magical aura they exuded like scavengers, feasting on that which was left from the meal of predators.

Around her there was only terrified silence, for even the traces of the dead had fled from her.

He'd only seen that kind of silence reserved for one person, and even for Karlheinz the sheer terror hadn't been there.

Whatever she was, Kisaragi Saya was dangerous. No matter how she acted like she wasn't.

Kanato kept his guard up around her, instinctively recognizing a kind of superiority he could not challenge. It grated at him, and sometimes he toed the line – the blood of recklessness and pride passed down by Cordelia, while thicker in the other triplets, was also still present in him as well – in defiance of his instincts, but when the weight of her gaze fell upon him he could not stop the chill that ran up his spine.

* * *

Even when he was younger, playing with Edgar secretly, Shu had always been a predator at heart, confident in his ability to fight off anything. Though that confidence was long-since shattered at the loss of his first and only friend and he was now lethargic, unwilling to emotionally invest himself in anything, he was fundamentally a creature meant to prey upon the weak with his inherent strength and knew no other way of being.

Having always been a predator, Shu did not particularly find the sensation of finding a predator above him in the same vicinity to be particularly pleasant. The only thing that kept him from doing anything – whatever that might have been – was the fact that Saya was as unwilling to do anything, almost as much as he was.

Yes, she did punish his brothers when they annoyed her too much, and to that Shu could only think those arrogant idiots kind of deserved it, but otherwise she was fairly set in her routine. Sometimes move to the kitchen to grab coffee, join them for mealtime, deal with Laito when he said something perverted and gave Ayato a half-hearted glare but didn't bother chasing after him when he fled.

Shu might have almost believed her to be harmless.

But sometimes, Saya looked at them all thoughtfully, eyes deep and dark, and Shu remembered them red and glowing. Remembered what it felt like, faced with undeniable strength like a mountain, recalled the taste of absolute defeat with his blood and sweat on his tongue as he was pushed closer to death than he ever had been.

Saya was a storm wearing pretty, human-shaped skin, and the monster inside, on par with the strength of the god of vampires himself, was just waiting for something.

Shu kept out of her way. Experiencing her strength, really experiencing it instead of the small love taps Ayato and Laito received once was more than enough for him. He had no desire for a repeat performance.

* * *

As a man who looked first at a woman's most important assets when introduced, Ayato liked to consider himself as a bit of a connoisseur in the matter of female breasts. By his assessment, in terms of breast size, Kisaragi Saya did have the ideal pair of breasts and the body to match. She was slim and curvy in body, yet her breasts were full in size, ample and large enough to spill through his hands were he to cup them.

Not that he had or would. Rocket Boobs was just too violent. She didn't bother pursuing him, but Ayato began to weigh the consequences. The only reason she didn't chase him after he called her the nickname was because she figured his running away was punishment enough to make up for the lack of violence.

It was incredibly lazy, but also an effective method. And Laito, who was arguably worse, stuck by and braved the punishment.

If Laito could take it, so could he. And what was more – he could confront her directly. The fight from the first day was a fluke, only ending as it did because they had been caught off-guard. If Laito and Subaru hadn't gotten in the way, he could have handled her perfectly well on his own.

Ayato grabbed the sword from his room. He hadn't used it in a while, but it was still in working shape. Saya, on her first day at the manor, had been carrying swords. If she could use it, cool. If not, whatever.

He had a fight to pick with her.


	11. 2-1: the least you can do to atone

part two: love, too, had to be learned.

or

Saya and the Sakamaki Brothers meet Yui.

* * *

 _"In order to keep living  
other living things must be sacrificed, right?"  
"So giving something wholly delicious to eat  
is the least you can do to atone."_

'The Last Supper', natsuP

By the time Komori Yui arrived at her destination, the clouds began to let the rain fall with a flash storm.

It wasn't exactly the ideal way to start a new life in a new place, Yui thought as she tried to keep her spirits up. She disliked storms and the crashing thunder that came with it. At least she would be able to appreciate the warmth of her new home soon enough when escaping the chill of the weather.

She hurried past the gate and towards the doors. The mansion was large, even larger than the church she had grown up in, like a castle out of a storybook.

It looked almost too good to be true for her. Yui felt like she didn't belong, an invader of this elegant environment. She wished her father didn't need to move abroad, or at least to a place where she wouldn't be able to follow.

Thunder boomed ominously above and she cringed before ducking under the eaves over the rich, dark red doors. She really didn't like thunderstorms.

Oddly enough there was no doorbell for the door, just a heavy antique metal knocker. Marveling a little at the relic she'd only seen in old movies or historical novels – even her father's church had been equipped with a doorbell – and a little worried about if the knocker's sound would be heard by inhabitants, Yui lifted the handle and let it strike against its base.

A large clang filled the air like the thunder that had shaken the skies just moments before. But was it loud enough to be heard from within the manor? When the entire place looked so big?

She let the knocker strike once more. What if, she thought, biting her lower lip in worry, they mistook the sound of the knocker for the thunder? Then she would be stuck out here while there was a storm going on, which was the worst thing she could think of happening.

Yui didn't have to worry long. One of the double doors opened, and Yui's breath caught. Having grown up at a church, she didn't come into contact with many people or watch a lot of television like her peers, but even if she had been like any other regular teenager her age, she thought that she still would have been taken aback by the person who answered.

Hair as black as the night, glossy like silk and stylishly cut to a length that brushed at her collarbone, exposed by the elegant creamy blouse she wore swayed gently from the movement. Her pale, smooth skin, flawless and lustrous like pearls juxtaposed against her dark locks and brought out the striking beauty of her features, which were almost cat-like, with a small pointed chin and large gunmetal eyes.

The young woman, around the same height as Yui, wore an unsmiling face, but even the lack of warmth was beautiful, like a sculpture of a solemnn angel dedicated only to God. She dressed young, wearing a blouse and a kilt skirt with over-the-knee socks, but she also seemed mature, not only because of her appearance but the way she carried herself, firm and confident.

"Komori Yui?" the most beautiful woman Yui had ever seen asked in a clipped tone, a voice very much set in reality unlike her appearance. Yui straightened her spine automatically, trying to not slouch. It wouldn't do to leave a terrible first impression.

"Y-yes!"

The woman's dark grey eyes skimmed over her face, and Yui resisted the urge to shrink. Her gaze held a weight that made Yui feel like she was standing in front of a force of nature, someone – some _thing_ – great and awe-inspiring.

"My name is Kisaragi Saya," she introduced herself as she opened the front door a little wider to allow Yui entry.

"Nice – nice to meet you, Kisaragi-san," Yui said, stumbling over her words and flushing at the mistake. She seemed like such a put-together person, and Yui wasn't doing a great job of making herself seem useful.

"You may not think so soon," she replied cryptically. "And please call me by my first name."

The first part was rather ominous, but . . . maybe it was just a word of concern, truthfully telling her that there was a chance she might not like this place. Maybe the young woman was friendlier than her straight countenance suggested, and the latter part of her sentence reinforced Yui's belief. She perked up a little and answered with genuine enthusiasm.

"Yes, Saya-san!"

With a small nod, Saya opened the door further to allow enough room for Yui to enter the house.

"Follow me," she instructed, turning around and walking down the red carpet that was laid out from the door to the other side of the hall, up the large marble staircase that split into two. It was a grand lobby, with thick, round pillars holding up the ceiling and a chandelier fully lit providing the lights.

The hall Saya led her into was a grand place, as expected of a mansion as large as this one. The floors were sleek marble, and a large staircase with thick banisters curling elegantly connected the first and second floors.

Yui followed Saya to the chairs set around, dragging her carrier and trying desperately to keep it quiet. The rough sounds it made as the wheels struggled to do their job, creaking and squeaking loudly, were embarrassing. And this was with the rolling sounds cushioned by the carpet. She would have carried the bag instead, but she wasn't strong enough to do that for long.

Before they reached the staircase, Saya turned right into an alcove tucked just barely out of sight. A long bench furnished green waited there, and was filled with a sleeping redheaded boy. His clothes were slightly rumpled and his shirt wasn't buttoned fully. By appearance alone Yui would have thought him to be a hooligan, but she reminded herself that to judge people based on their appearance was a terrible thing to do.

"Ayato," Saya said.

The boy, still with his eyes closed, let out a soft groan.

"What's up, Rocket Boobs?" he asked without opening his eyes. Yui's own eyes widened at the rudeness of his words. If she was called such a thing, then she wasn't sure how she would even be able to respond.

Saya, however, just sighed.

"We have a guest," she told him simply.

'Ayato's' eyes opened at that and slid over to her, and then fell to her chest. Yui received the answer to her question a lot quicker than she had expected.

"A Pancake this time?" he muttered, slowly pushing himself up into a sitting position and running a lazy hand through his red hair. "Not an improvement Yours Truly likes-"

Yui didn't even have time to flush in embarrassment. She barely caught sight of a blur of movement from her side, too quick for her peripheral vision to catch properly. The next thing she saw was Saya, on the other side of the chair, holding Ayato by his throat with one small hand. The thin, delicate fingers weren't long enough to wrap fully around a young man's throat, but it gripped what it could with strong force.

"Ayato, I believe we have discussed this matter before," she said calmly, so calmly that Yui almost thought it was something normal. She might not even have realized the wrongness in what she was seeing were it not for the redheaded boy's choking sounds and his scratching of Saya's arms trying get her to release him.

"Saya-san!" she gasped belatedly. No, this was not a normal thing, and it was _absolutely_ not okay.

Saya squeezed once, deliberately, the tightening around his throat visible enough that Yui could see it, and then released Ayato back into his seat where he slumped. Yui looked over him to make sure he was still breathing and alive.

The redhead glanced up, and their eyes met before he scowled.

"What are you looking at, Pancake?" he demanded.

Yui had no idea what to say in response. She hadn't expected gratitude, had not spoken up for the sake of being thanked, but she also hadn't expected this kind of a reaction.

"Ayato." Saya's voice was quiet, but it was clearly a warning. Ayato averted his eyes from Yui's, and she shivered. It wasn't just the wet clothes seeping away at her temperature. This house itself was cold, and not just physically.

With a grumble under his breath he averted his eyes, though he was clearly unhappy to do so.

"Where are the others?" Saya asked in the same quiet tone of voice.

"How should I know?" he snarked, but his words overlapped with another's.

"Hey, Bitch-san~"

Yui, flabbergasted at the rude name, opened and shut her mouth repeatedly without making a sound. Saya merely glanced towards a different entrance, where two other boys came from.

"Yui-san," Saya said. "The two rude redheads are Sakamaki Ayato and Sakamaki Laito. The one holding the bear doll is Sakamaki Kanato. They are triplets. Shall we move to the parlor?"

Without waiting for a reply Saya began heading down the hallway past the alcove, and Yui hurried to follow her. The triplets, even Ayato, joined them on the way.

The parlor, thankfully, was better lit than the rest of the mansion. Saya gestured at the seats, but before she could say anything Ayato claimed an entire sofa for his own.

The new redhead – Laito, from what Saya had told her – gave her a smile with curving eyes that was incredibly beautiful and almost seductive. The words he spoke, unfortunately, were far less so.

"Ah, so now we have a Bitch-chan," he sang. He leaned in, eyes gleaming in interest, and Yui shrank back, feeling a chill go down her spine. "Hmm- _mm_?"

Saya kicked his knee. It might have been a thing friends did to each other in jest, except the impact made an obvious, sickening 'crunch' sound, the sound of bone fracturing. Yui flinched while Laito hissed in pain, beautiful smile crumpling into nothing but an expression of twisted agony.

"You idiots never learn," muttered Kanato, clutching his teddy bear and demurely sitting down. "Right, Teddy?"

If Saya hadn't said they were triplets Yui would have thought he was the youngest of them all by several years because he was shorter than his brothers, and more boyish compared to the other two.

Saya ignored the two redheads she had hurt and focused on the third brother. Like Kanato had implied, he did nothing to bring her wrath down upon himself, only a question.

"Kanato, where are the others?"

Kanato's eyes, a wide purple a similar shade to his hair, slowly raised up towards the stairs. Yui followed his gaze and saw a tall young man with black hair and glasses silently walking down the steps. Unlike the redheads or Kanato, he was dressed impeccably, not a hair or a bit of cloth out of place, as if he had walked off the cover of a magazine for well-dressed men.

"Subaru should be coming soon," Kanato said quietly, once Saya had glanced behind to see the dark-haired one. "He was in the gardens."

"Don't talk about me behind my back," snarled a new voice, and a teenage boy with silver hair and torn clothes joined them. He frowned when he caught sight of Yui, and she was reminded once again of a hooligan. Despite his good looks, he did not seem friendly at all and more likely to turn violent at a hair trigger. "Who the hell is this?"

"Yui-san, this is Sakamaki Subaru, the youngest of the Sakamaki brothers. The one who just joined us is Sakamaki Reiji, the second oldest." Saya ignored Subaru's question, and he bristled. "Reiji, where is Shu?"

"The good-for-nothing? Who knows?" Reiji sneered. Yui shrank at the vitriol in his voice, bitter and venomous enough to frighten even when not directed at her. "Saya, I must ask as well, however. Who is this?"

Saya looked at them all with a cool gaze.

"I will introduce her when everyone is here," she said evenly. "Where is Shu?"

"Here," said a lethargic voice. Yui peeked over Saya's shoulders and saw a yawning blond make his way towards the rest of them. Earphones hung from his ears, and his half-shut eyes and languorous movements made it clear that he was sleepy. He was very handsome, like everyone else in this household she had seen so far, but he also looked very tired and unenthusiastic.

When his eyes landed on Yui, he raised an eyebrow.

"Oh," he said. "Are you the woman he mentioned?"

Who was he talking about? Her father? But would her father have sent her to stay in a place where there were so many boys? For the first time it wasn't just uncertainty that squeezed her heart anxiously, but also doubt. "W-who?"

"She is," Saya interrupted before the blond could answer her question. "This is Komori Yui. She will live in the manor with the rest of us, and attend the academy as well, in the same year as the triplets."

Yui's eyes widened. Saya, alright, that was understandable, but the others?

"Saya-san," she protested. "There must be a mistake."

Saya paused and looked at her. Her face was as coolly blank as before, but Yui thought she could pick up a thread of patience. And Saya never was violent, in the short time Yui had known her, towards those that weren't so horribly rude. Seizing all the courage she could from that small bit of hope, she continued.

"I-I couldn't live in a house with, um, boys." Her voice cracked on the last word and her face went hot as someone snickered. "It wouldn't be proper. I was raised very strictly, and -"

"Whine, whine, whine," interrupted Ayato, throwing his head back. The bruise left from Saya's grip showed easily against the pale skin of his neck, but he didn't seem to be affected by it. "You're annoying, Pancake. Only thing you might be good for is the sweet-"

"Ayato." Saya's voice was like a cracking whip this time.

"Ehh? Bitch-san reacts to Ayato commenting on Bitch-chan's chest, but not her own?" Laito licked his lips. "Could it be that she secretly likes-"

Once again there was a blur of movement, but this time Yui saw the stretch towards Ayato's throat, something grabbing and yanking him by the front of his shirt and flip him over the air towards the speaking redhead. The next second, Ayato was crashing into Laito's head and both their bodies knocking over a chair. Saya straightened and mechanically brushed her hands off like she had touched something dusty and wanted its traces off from her palms.

Yui flinched again. Even Saya wasn't quite safe.

"This – there must have been a mistake," she protested weakly.

Unfortunately, that drew some of their attention to her. Something cool pressed like feathers against her neck, and she flinched away from the surprise contact. Kanato had somehow gotten behind her while she was focused on those in front of her, and his wide eyes were focused on her.

"You smell delicious," he said, eyes not quite seeing her but something else inside her. Yui got the feeling that it wasn't quite a compliment, and tried to back away, only to walk into a chair. "Very sweet. Ayato's right, for once."

"A human?"

Yui's head whipped towards Reiji, who was frowning in contemplation. Her heartbeat picked up in fear. This – this had to be a mistake, or a bad dream, or something else because what they were implying, what she had seen, it couldn't possibly be –

"A human," Saya confirmed, and Yui felt her heart drop at the eyes that all gathered to her, assessing her curiously, but not as a fellow equal. As something lesser, or an object. Even Ayato and Laito had untangled themselves and their fight to look at her, interest prickling at her skin uncomfortably.

Oh God, please, it couldn't be –

"You're kidding," said Subaru. The disbelief thick in his voice almost matched the confusion she felt. "What the hell?"

"A snack?" Laito's eyes curved into a delighted smile. "Oh, Bitch-san, you shouldn't have."

Saya rubbed at the bridge of her nose with two fingers, frowning.

"My patience is running thin," she warned them, and Yui gasped when her eyes changed to a glowing red with split, vertical pupils like that of a cat's. "Behave."

"Ooh, are we getting down and nasty-"

"Tell me, Laito, can you regenerate lost limbs? Because I can help you find out if that is the case."

This, Yui thought, was definitely either a dream or a huge mistake. She discreetly pinched herself and found, much to her chagrin, that it was painful.

"So?" asked Kanato. If it was a dream, not reality like the pinch had just confirmed, then it was definitely a nightmare. "Can we eat her?"

Saya, who looked ready to carry out her threat of removing Ayato's limbs regardless of how impossible – though impossible began feeling a lot closer to reality at this point for Yui – the task was, glanced back. The red glow in her eyes faded back to dark grey, and she sighed.

"Not quite," she said. Yui's heart dropped.

"What?" she squeaked, and then nearly screamed when Kanato grabbed her shoulder, smile splitting up his ghostly pale face.

"I said 'not quite', Kanato," Saya said in warning. "Let her go. I'm not done talking."

The purple-haired boy pouted and nearly threw her aside. He was a lot stronger than he appeared, and Yui nearly fell to her knees from the force he shoved her with.

"The hell does that even mean?" Subaru asked. "A human living with us, and we don't suck her blood?"

"'Suck my blood'?" Yui echoed, horrified. Saya ran a hand through her bangs, combing out the short strands with her fingers as she thought.

"Komori-san," Saya said at last. "Would you like to sit?"

Not really, no. What she wanted to do was call her father and find out just what was going on here. There had to be a mistake. There had to be.

"Yes, please," she said instead, and hesitantly lowered herself next to where Saya took a seat. They were of similar heights even when sitting, but Saya sat with a brusque confidence that Yui lacked. The beautiful young woman held herself like she had every right to be there, and did not much care for it regardless. Yui felt every bit an outsider.

"To answer your question first, Subaru," Saya continued. "She is here as a bride."

The silver-haired boy glared daggers, but Saya did not flinch.

"What," he growled. Exactly what Yui wanted to say, minus the anger.

"Not," Saya said. "As a blood bag, or a snack, or a feast for all of you like you seemed to treat past candidates. She is a resident of this mansion, and she will pick one of you. Only the one she chooses will be permitted to drink Yui's blood. The rest will respect her choice and not drink from her."

"I – what?" Yui repeated Subaru's question. This was not the world she was used to – or what she had been told. This all had to be –

"He also mentioned not to kill her," Shu added from his spot on the sofa, almost as an afterthought. What he said, however, was a little too serious to be _just_ an afterthought, especially from Yui's perspective. "He made that very clear."

Yui fumbled for her phone. This – this was insane. None of this was right. She had to get out of here. These people were insane. And dangerous.

"Tell us this kind of stuff beforehand," Subaru snapped.

"I assumed you would be told by your father or Shu," Saya replied evenly.

The brothers, different as they were, all made faces of disgust.

"Evidently I was wrong," Saya added.

"Yeah," Subaru said with a scoff. "No shit."

Before she could reach her contacts a pale hand extended and plucked the phone out of her hand.

"Ah-ah-ah, Bitch-chan," said Laito, wagging his finger playfully. "No calling. It won't help you anyways."

Yui opened her mouth to protest – at her phone being taken away, at being called such a terrible nickname – when Laito flexed his hand and crushed her phone. He was still smiling that playful smile, but his eyes were cold.

The message was clear to her. To try and keep her hands from trembling, she held them tight in her lap. This was not something she was used to, or prepared for, but Yui knew one thing – that she might as well have been on a tightrope far above ground right now without a net stretched out to catch her. One wrong move and . . .

"It's a lot to take in," Saya said, and Yui looked to just about the only source of hope she had. There was little sympathy in her face and the words sounded customary rather than sincere, but it was something. "If you would like, you can rest, and I'll explain more tomorrow."

Laito laughed, and the sound was light and clear, everything she did not feel. "Mm. It's not every day our Bitch-san is so friendly. Why don't you take her offer?"

His words felt more like a threatening command than a friendly suggestion. Yui saw nothing else she could do except nod, not trusting her voice to work properly.


	12. 2-2: don't wait for a special miracle

part two: love, too, had to be learned.

or

Saya and the Sakamaki Brothers meet Yui.

* * *

 _Don't wait for a special miracle_  
 _There's a rough road in front of us_  
 _With unknowable future and obstacles, I won't change_  
 _I can't give up_

'Into the New World', Dreamcatcher

The bedroom she had been given was big enough to fit three of her former bedrooms. The furniture inside were all luxurious, a far cry different from the time-worn, sometimes-secondhand belongings that had filled Komori Yui's short life until this point. A minister could hardly live a life spending exorbitant amounts of money – at least, a proper, decent minister could hardly do so – and her father was a good man.

Is, she reminded herself firmly. Even if he could not save her from here at the moment, he still is a good man.

The beauty of the room, however, did nothing to make it appeal to her on a deeper level. Yui could appreciate its aesthetically pleasing aspects, like the large bed with the plush mattress that made her almost believe she was sleeping on clouds, the attached bathroom for her private use, the beautiful bathtub made from porcelain that could easily fit three of her, or the elegant furniture filling the room, but it didn't feel _right_ to her.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Yui felt as if _she_ did not belong there. Partly because she was so unused to splendor not dedicated to God, but a large part was due to the revelations made not even hours ago, delivered to her by Saya's blunt words forming an unbelievable story.

That vampires, and to an extension demons, were real.

Up to that part, Yui could – somewhat – be flexible in her thoughts now that she was alone and going over everything repeatedly. God existed – therefore, it made sense, in a way, for those that opposed him, those in the dark the holy books warned her of. The ones to tempt her into choosing wrong.

It was what Saya told her the day after her arrival, when Yui asked why she was here, that still had her heart thrumming in fear and disbelief.

"The human governments made a deal with those they couldn't defeat, using the logic of making small sacrifices for the greater good. They would send a designated number of people, and turn a blind eye to demons feeding on humans within reason." Saya's eyes were cool and her lips unsmiling. She could have easily been a marble statue carved by a renowned artist with all the emotions she showed during her curt words.

Yui swallowed. And one of them happened to be her.

A truth as large and dangerous as this revealed to her, and Yui's first reaction was to try and deny it. Inwardly, because she didn't want to voice it out loud and rob these dangerous people of more patience lest the consequences turn to her, but she was in a state of denial.

Not quite because she couldn't believe it. Because it was just so incredibly unfair.

Was it selfish of her, to wonder why she had to be the one chosen for this when there were so many people in the world?

"Usually the sacrifices are taken to the Demon Realm, where they are taken and either fed upon immediately, or kept alive for future consumption." Saya continued, as clinically as she had been before. "You were a special case, however."

She didn't feel particularly special, but given that the alternative was to be a sacrifice taken directly to the Demon Realm, Yui could at least comfort herself with the sliver of hope that she would survive. Somehow.

"Special how?" Ayato complained, eyeing her hungrily. The young men had stayed mostly silent as Saya detachedly destroyed her beliefs in the world around her, but their impatience was beginning to override whatever things keeping them in restraint.

"Don't be dumb," Kanato scolded him. "You can smell it, can't you?"

"As they've said," said Saya, as unperturbed as ever. Her calmness seemed to infect her as well, and Yui was able to stay calm as well throughout the whole time. It was too surreal, to be honest, for her to react in another way. "Your blood is what vampires might consider top-quality."

Yui's blood type was O. It was a random fact about herself that she couldn't help but remember. Universal donor – was that something to do with how her blood was considered 'top-quality'?

"Which is why," Saya added. "The choice is yours."

"The- choice?" Yui repeated the word that seemed incredibly out of place with what she was being told.

Saya gestured to the six young men. "Only one vampire will drink from you," Saya said. "And you will be the one to choose which."

It was not a choice Yui liked very much, but that she would say only to herself.

"Of course she'll choose Yours Truly-"

"In your dreams, Ayato."

"You're all so annoying, quiet down."

While the brothers bickered, Saya turned to her. Yui wondered what she would tell her to do. And, more despairingly, whether she would be able to refuse. The odds seemed unlikely.

"Go to your room and clear your head," the other girl suggested. "The choice doesn't have to be made now. You can observe them a little longer and then choose. It doesn't," she paused, and an odd light flickered in her dark eyes for a moment. "It doesn't guarantee that you'll see all parts of them, but it should at least let you get a sense of what they're like and make a better choice. Think about it a little. It's your choice."

It didn't feel like her choice, but Yui knew better than to say that out loud.

"Are-" Here was an important part, one Yui absolutely couldn't mess up on. She didn't want to end up offending the others. "Are you also one of the people I can choose?"

Yui had tried to ask the question quietly so as to not draw their attentions, but vampires seemed to have sharp senses. The ruckus behind quietened down, and while Yui couldn't see them, she could feel their gazes boring into her back.

Saya paused, letting her eyes flit over those behind Yui warningly.

"No," she said once her eyes returned to making contact with Yui. "Your choices will be from the sons of Karlheinz. I will not be drinking your blood."

Disappointment crashed over her and she tried to not let it show. Judging from the sneers some of the vampires gave her, Yui clearly had failed.

Saya did not react. "I can walk you to your room now," was all she said.

Yui chose what she considered to be the safest route at the moment and followed, but she felt the gazes burning into her back.

The hallways were dimly lit, like the rest of the mansion. Richly furnished and elegant as the house may have been, like a castle in a fairytale, the lack of light filled its vast space with an ominous atmosphere that did nothing to help Yui relax, especially after the revelations made to her.

"You will be enrolled in the same school as the rest of us," Saya said, breaking the silence between them.

It was, Yui realized, an attempt at conversation.

"O-okay," she said. School. School would be normal, right? That, she could take. Normal would be great right now. "What is it – what is the school like?"

"I don't know," Saya replied. "I'm new to the school as well."

More awkward silence, though it was awkward for Yui. Saya didn't seem at all affected by it.

"What year will you be in, Saya-san?" she asked, putting in effort to keep up the conversation.

"Third."

And since Yui wasn't going to be skipping a grade, that meant they wouldn't be in the same year. "O-oh," she said, a little disappointed.

"The triplets will be in the same grade as you," Saya said, and while the words might have meant to be a form of consolation, it only made her flinch. The triplets were the scariest of the brothers. She tried to imagine them acting in a manner that would let them pretend to be regular people and failed.

Or, Yui thought, maybe they wouldn't have to.

"Are there, will there be, I mean," Yui stuttered.

Saya waited patiently for her to get her words together.

"Will there be other vampires in the school?"

Saya paused. "The school itself is unaware of the existence of the Demon World and its residents," she answered. "But if any demons decide they want to attend a human school, that is out of my control."

So, it really would be normal.

The other girl looked at her quietly, eyes deep.

"Is something," _wrong_ , Yui wanted to ask, but the word caught on her tongue. Everything, in a way, was wrong. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

She sighed a little. "Don't try to seek for help," she warned. There was nothing threatening about her voice. Her words were quiet, almost resigned.

Despite that Yui's heart froze in fear, before accelerating. "Huh?"

"Don't try to reveal your situation to anyone," Saya continued. "Don't speak about vampires, or demons to a human."

"I wasn't-," Yui protested, scared despite the lack of threat in Saya's stance or voice. She still remembered how quickly the girl had moved.

"The secret of the Demon World has been kept all this time," Saya interrupted, still in the same unchanging tone of voice. Yui might have almost called her words gentle. And maybe it was – the only kindness that would be shown to her. "Because the best keepers of secrets are the dead."

Yui trembled, feeling the last bit of threads connecting her to her former life fall away like cut strings.

"The choice is yours, Komori-san," Saya said. "The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can make the most of it."

They stopped in front of her room. Saya didn't say anything else, and there was still no expression on her face, but Yui thought she saw an apologetic light in her eyes.


	13. 2-3: a dangerous rainbow

part two: love, too, had to be learned.

or

Saya and the Sakamaki Brothers meet Yui.

* * *

 _Like I'm trapped in forgotten time  
I'm trapped  
In this night  
A dangerous rainbow is engraved_

'Fly High', Dreamcatcher

There was nothing but darkness, as far as her eyes could see. Staring into the distance and searching into the vast oblivion made her dizzy as she floated, white noise filling her ears in the wake of nothing.

It was a dream, but one that filled her with fear more than any nightmare.

Before she could go mad with terror in the vast, almost devastatingly empty space, Yui was not alone.

The dark vacuum hosted her, and a beautiful monster. Unlike her, the monster seemed to flourish in the darkness, absolutely relishing the shadows and the lack of light.

"An end," the monster murmured, voice as smooth and rich as velvet. The beautiful terror reached out to the vast emptiness as if expecting for someone to reach back. "At long last, my love."

There was no hand reaching back, no reply Yui could hear, but the monster smiled delightedly. "No more of the night, gone on for too long."

The space churned, as if the darkness was the surface of still water rippling in protest to something thrown past its surface. Yui's body was shaken along with the quakes, and she began to fall.

"A new Eve, for a new dawn," the monster spoke, and that was the last she heard before the dark, empty world shattered, and she woke with a start in a room she was yet unfamiliar with, breathing harder than usual as her heart raced, still tricked by the sensation of falling.

Just a dream. Just an odd dream that ended a little badly. She was in the bedroom given to her, lying in bed –

And the triplets were looking at her, hands on parts of her body, fangs extended like they were about to bite. Her heart, just beginning to slow at the reassurance that no, she wasn't falling, not really, nearly dropped before racing again at full speed.

Yui screamed before she could even think about anything.

"What the fuck, Pancake," Ayato said, frown marring his handsome face, when the door to Yui's room was forcibly slammed open with a loud crash, revealing Saya in pajamas. In one hand she held – of all things – a sheathed sword. Yui did a double take at the dichotomy of a beautiful girl dressed for bed holding a weapon, and faintly wondered if she was still dreaming.

"Bitch-san, come to join the party?" Laito sang.

The dark-haired girl glowered at the triplets, and as her eyes changed into a bright, glowing red the color of fresh blood Yui feared her more than she had feared the three in that moment. The smile slipped off Laito's lips –

And then he was thrown off the bed, body on the ground with his head turned. Saya stood with her arm extended. The sword was still sheathed but held out –

Because she had used it like a blunt weapon to hit Laito on the side of his head.

Saya was a blur again after that. Ayato gagged and crumpled his body, clutching at his throat. The sound of steel sliding against something, just on the borderline of being unpleasant and sending a crawling sensation up her spine because of its liminal state, was still clear in Yui's ears when the freed scabbard struck Kanato's forehead dead-on with a loud, solid 'thunk'. He cried out in pain in response, but it was drowned out when Ayato, snarling, launched himself from her bed towards her.

"Saya-san!" she all but shrieked. Ayato's hands were extended, like he wanted to strangle her delicate neck until the very last breath was choked out of them.

She was worrying for the wrong person.

Saya batted aside his arm with a gesture that was almost dismissive, like he was a mosquito – and stabbed his leg with the sword in her other hand. As he fell, the blade still in his leg like a grotesque shish kebab, it tore at his flesh and muscles. Just looking at it made her feel phantom pain. Ayato roared, clearly agonized.

Yui gagged when Saya ripped her sword out of Ayato's leg without any regard for his comfort, and even more blood began to pour out of the exacerbated wound. The smell was undeniable, and reality struck. This was no dream. This was all happening, truly.

"If you'd prefer, I can remove parts of their body for you," Saya offered, over the sound of Ayato's howls. She gave a half-swing of the sword that was almost lazy with how expertly she wielded it, and shook off most of the blood, letting the blade regain most of its silver color and shine chillingly in the room. "Just point to a part you want gone."

To demonstrate, she stabbed through Laito's right hand. He screamed in pain, but couldn't move his hand in fear of tearing through it.

Yui paled, not just at the sight of blood but because she realized Saya was talking to her.

"Saya-san, no!" she pleaded, eyes on anything but the blood freshly spilled in her room. It was a little hard – it seemed to have splashed everywhere, to the point where Ayato and Laito's survival seemed odd. "It's – it's not right to do that!"

Even as she spoke, however, Yui wasn't sure if her words would be enough to get her point across to Saya. How would she be able to persuade Saya to not retaliate with violence and vengeance? It was for her, yes, but this wasn't right, and if it was done in her name for her then Yui was also guilty.

She might be, given the circumstances, living among monsters who traded human lives as numbers and didn't treat her as an equal, let alone with respect – with the doubtful exception of Saya, who was still a mystery to her – but that didn't mean she had to lose the parts of herself that made her who she was. Komori Yui, before this, would never have not spoken out against violence.

It didn't matter that Ayato and Laito had been the ones to invade her room, and make threat of drinking her blood.

She refused to lose that part of herself.

Even if the effort to do so made her shake with terror, like she was baring her throat to a lion's fangs.


	14. 2-4: this dream in a maze

part two: love, too, had to be learned.

or

Saya and the Sakamaki Brothers meet Yui.

* * *

Even if darkness comes, even if it tortures me  
Even if the burnt up sun tries to swallow me  
I'm bristling like the needles of a cactus  
I'm blooming like a flower in the desert  
I'm escaping from this spell  
Waking up from this dream in a maze

'What', Dreamcatcher

She should have kept a better eye on the triplets.

Shu was reliably too lazy to pull anything – for now. Reiji liked to be in control and he wouldn't reveal himself this early on, not when he wanted to make observations and assessments. Subaru, for all his rough edges, was also busy being wary of her and Yui's unexpected appearances at the mansion to try something like this. Besides, he actually listened, most of the time.

The triplets were wild, brash and blatantly disrespectful of the rules and boundaries, even more so than usual for their kind. They saw a girl, caught her scent and wanted her blood regardless of instructions that had been made clear to them the night before.

If Yui hadn't screamed Saya might have been too late.

Even the kind-hearted girl couldn't make herself say it was alright, Saya noted. She had lost most of the color in her face and her hands were still shaking, but she continued to try and speak in favor of forgiving the triplets.

"It's actually quite right," Saya corrected, as outside the room the other brothers gathered, drawn by the commotion. None of them showed signs of surprise at the triplets, though they did seem taken aback at the drawn weapon in her hand.

She needed to make it clear to them the official reason for why she was here, and now was as good a time as any to do just that.

Saya made direct eye contact with Yui. The new Eve, too, needed to understand.

"My job," she enunciated, "as agreed with Karlheinz – their father and king, and man responsible for your presence here as the bride – is that should they disrespect your choice and hurt you against your will, I may carry out your judgement and punish them accordingly. I have been told their healing abilities are on par with that of a pureblooded vampire's. They won't die from a small amputation, and while they can't grow it back, they won't miss it very much."

Well, Saya amended to herself, they would live. As for whether they would actually miss whatever part she cut off or not, she didn't know or particularly care. They should really have known better than to cross her –

Except they didn't. Because they were too young to recognize that she had once been called Lilith.

She took in a deep breath. Patience. She needed to have patience.

Yui's face actually paled even further than before.

"Saya-san," she begged. "No. What if – what if someone cut off _your_ hand or arm?"

The appeal for her empathy had very little effect, save adding the smallest bit to her frustrations. Saya sighed. Yui was too human in an unfortunately good way, and the Sakamaki and other vampire boys too beastly. Karlheinz may have had his talents, but in the fields of matchmaking and child-raising he failed spectacularly.

"It would be a minor inconvenience before it regenerated, and nothing more," she said flatly. The Eve needed to understand that she was no longer living in a normal world. That her 'protector' was the most inhumane and monstrous of them all, a creature from the old times that needed to be slain along with the coming of a dawn of a new age.

That her morals would be her chains, shackling her to a terrible fall if she continued to clutch to them.

Yui didn't give up on trying to get her to understand. "Then – then your head? No, wait, that's just dying . . . ."

"A little longer to grow back, but again, a minor inconvenience." Saya sighed again when she received several gazes of disbelief, and not just from the only human in the room. Her point wasn't getting across in the way she had wanted it to. "Yui-san, if you don't want me to amputate anything from anyone in this room, just say so."

" _Please_ don't!" Yui seized on her offer like a drowning man seized the closest thing to him.

Saya pulled out her sword and with a flick of her wrist, shook the blood off the blade. She sheathed it with one smooth movement, and then grabbed Laito by his undamaged hand to pull him back to his feet.

"Oh, Bitch-san is taking charge," Laito said with a laugh, mouth still unable to control itself. His laughter changed into a snarl of pain when she crushed the bones in his wrist in her grip.

Yui screamed. "Saya-san!"

"Let this be a warning, Laito," Saya told him, ignoring Yui for now. He lashed out with a fist, and she let him punch her once in the chest. For someone with a disadvantage in both posture and strength, it wasn't a half-bad effort on his part. She felt the ache in her left breast.

Then _she_ punched him and knocked the air out of his lungs. She also ended up breaking one or more of his ribs, judging from the feeling of something giving from the impact, and the blood he coughed out. Saya had a decent amount of experience, fighting bodies that were humanoid in shape and size and keeping them alive. Experience built up after all the times humanity had betrayed her, and hunted her down while she could not take their lives.

While he went limp, gasping for breath, Saya lifted him so that his neck was near her lips. There was no resistance, no magical vow keeping her from feeding there. Laito was, by her instinctual definition, her prey.

And that was a problem for the part of Saya that wanted to defy her instincts. When she was hunting Elder Bairns her purpose was to always slay them, and her nutritional requirement came later. Keeping them alive in the other world had not been an option.

She needed to exercise control now, be careful with how much she drank from him. Just a little as a warning and to show her hands to the blind sons of Karlheinz, and then end it. Laito would survive.

Probably.

Saya bit down on his neck, piercing his skin and letting the blood fill her mouth. Laito thrashed and tried to pry her jaw off his neck, but her bite was like a vice grip and only ended up tearing the wound up deeper with his struggling. He eventually realized that to struggle would cause more pain, and his shouts changed to moans of pain.

"What the _fuck_ ," Ayato rasped as she fed, enough for a brief snack and to keep Laito alive. Saya unclenched her jaw and let Laito fall to his knees before her, dazed.

The blood of the vampire king's son was potent and strong in magic, incomparable to the blood of ghouls she had been sustaining herself on so far. The sealed magic in her own veins thrummed at the potential she tasted, not unleashed yet but stirring, hot and fierce and powerful under her skin.

With the reaction of the magic she had not used in so long, inside her also stirred the part of her that had been suppressed and forgotten, the part that had once been violent and arrogant and decadent, the one called Lilith in fear and reverence. The one that had been forgotten after exile and replaced with Saya, who knew not her origins and was weakened for it, despite her continued immortality.

In that moment, blood and magic strong within her, she was closer to Lilith than Saya, and it was Lilith that gazed out from her eyes at the six wary vampires and one terrified human, Lilith that dominated this space with the ease of one breathing.

"What are you?" Reiji asked stiffly, having sensed the change. Perhaps it was his father's influence that he and his brothers did not fall to his knees.

Lilith, once mother of demons, once the eldest of the night's monsters, once queen of the darkest beings and origin of immortality, did not deign to answer the lesser child's question. She did not concern herself with those far below her unless they had proven themselves worthy of her attention or irritated her.

Instead Lilith breathed in and exhaled, the only sound in the otherwise silent room. Time spent asleep, memories suppressed and buried, and no change had come. The bloodthirst and lust for battle, the reckless ecstasy she had sought out were dead within.

Lilith still suffered from the ennui of immortality, still wished for an end.

Her eyes glanced over the sons of the one that was called the god of demons, after her exile. Shu, eyes lacking any trace of languid irritation for once, pressed a firm hand to his brother's shoulder to silence him, and it was a wise choice, keeping him from irritating her as Lilith. The others, stiff and still, looked at her warily, the unfamiliar feeling of being prey in front of an apex predator filling them with what they could not properly identify as 'fear'.

But they would live. Lilith needed them more alive than dead.

Soon, the trace from an ancient past faded away like a waning tide, and Saya was once more her current self. The brothers noticed the change again, but did not ease up.

The buzz, like pins and needles, or perhaps the remaining adrenaline after a fight, remained, but Lilith's presence was no longer there at the forefront of her mind.

It was Saya now, Saya who really preferred not having attention to herself, Saya who just wanted the end to come and finish her already. That was the only thing Saya and Lilith had in common, in that sense.

"Komori-san," she said, prioritizing. "Until your room is cleaned, please come to my room."

"Huh?" the human girl said, mind not quite processing Saya's request. The least spiritually taught of all those in the room, she had sensed something change within Saya at Lilith's stirring, but had no idea what it truly meant like the six vampires did.

"As for the rest of you," Saya continued without answering Yui. Ghosts of old pasts coming back was exhausting. " _Get out_."

Not one of them protested at her order, not after what they had witnessed.

* * *

AN: meant to come early but I got sidetracked with other stories (including another crossover story, this time a Sailor Moon/Katekyo Hitman Reborn one). Both crossovers are happy endings, I swear.


	15. 2-5: not somebody who's seen the light

part two: love, too, had to be learned.

or

Saya and the Sakamaki Brothers meet Yui.

* * *

 _Maybe there's a God above_  
 _But all I've ever learned from love_  
 _Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya_

 _And it's not a cry that you hear at night_  
 _It's not somebody who's seen the light_  
 _It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_

'Hallelujah', Leonard Cohen

After the sons of Karlheinz dispersed at her command, Saya looked over the room. Parts of the floor and the bed were still splattered with blood, and Yui was still shaking. One post of the bed had been shattered during the fight.

She sighed. This wasn't really a good place for someone unused to 'roughing it' to sleep in. Eve would hardly be well-rested in this environment.

Saya gestured, unwilling to repeat herself, and then began making her way back to her room, just down the corridor. Yui, behind her, made some fumbling noises before hurrying after her.

"I apologize for making a mess of your room," Saya said when Yui had caught up. "That was inconsiderate of me."

It was the least of things for her to be apologizing for, but Saya could not give up on pushing Yui down the path of Eve. Apologizing for something when she had no intention of stopping it would do nothing, and so Saya chose not to say anything about the subject to Yui and confuse her further.

"It – it's, um," Yui paused and bit at her lip. Struggling to be a polite, good girl and yet clashing with the urge to tell the truth.

"I'm not hurt," she said at last, settling on some kind of compromise with herself. The dejection that came with the compromise, neither Yui nor Saya could do anything about. "Thank you, Saya-san."

"It was no problem, Komori-san," Saya said blandly, opening the door to her room. "Please take the bed. The pillows and sheets were changed yesterday, but if they're unsuitable I can change them again."

"No, no!" Yui protested. "I don't want to be any trouble!"

Saya set her sword down on the desk. "It's no trouble."

The girl that would become the new Eve bit her lower lip.

"Still," she said. "An – and Saya-san, please call me by name."

"Very well, Yui-san," Saya said without batting an eye. Names didn't matter at this point. A small gesture to make the Eve more comfortable – she could do that. "Now get some sleep. A changed sleep schedule is trying on the body, and you need to attend school with the rest of us later tonight."

Yui hesitated, but eventually entered Saya's bed. Just as she was about to close her eyes, however, she sprang back up, eyes wide.

"What is it?" Saya asked, suppressing the slight stirring of irritation.

"What about you, Saya-san?" Yui asked.

A part of her wished Karlheinz had found an Eve that was less altruistic. But he wouldn't have settled for a girl of this kind of personality unless it was necessary, and after hearing of his plans Saya could understand why. She didn't approve of it very much and found it distasteful, but she could understand why.

"I don't sleep very much," Saya said, a half-truth. She didn't, really. The dreams weren't as bad as when she had been pursuing Fumito, chased by her ghosts, but they were still confusing and offered little rest or respite. Sleep with such dreams were hardly restful or restorative.

"But . . ."

Saya sighed. The girl needed sleep so that her head would be clear enough when she made the choice. It was important, very much so, that she made the right choice. For all his planning, Karlheinz couldn't make the choice for Yui, and neither could Saya who knew of the machinations of the Vampire King and stood to benefit from it.

In the end it was the Eve who had to choose her Adam from the bouquet of broken souls offered to her.

She reached out, and used her hand to cover Yui's eyes, gently pushing her head back down onto the pillow. Yui tried resisting at first, but soon came to realize that Saya was far stronger, even when barely exerting any force, and eventually gave up.

"Sleep, Yui-san," Saya ordered in a not-unkind voice, the part of her that could afford to take pity on her would-be murderer. "Would you like for me to sing you a song or something to help you?"

Saya had meant it as a half-joke meant to get the girl to relax. She hadn't expected for Yui to agree to it.

"Yes please," Yui whispered in a weak voice, and if her eyes hadn't been covered by Saya's hand the human girl might have seen Saya's face turn dumbstruck. She hadn't actually meant for the offer to be taken.

After a moment of hesitation, she began singing a hymn. The Kisaragi Saya that used to make up songs about her daily life on the spot, singing of mundane activities was no more.

It was probably for the best, she justified to herself. Yui had grown up in a church. The hymn was more likely to offer her a sense of comfort stemming from familiarity.

Saya didn't even need to complete the song. A few verses in, she felt Yui relax and drift into unconsciousness. She crooned one more verse, and then slowly pulled away her hand to reveal serenely closed eyes.

Silently, she got to her feet and slipped out of her room. Laito's blood having fed her, she technically didn't need to eat anything for a while. Physically she was fine.

But mentally she was exhausted, and she needed the illusion of waking up and becoming energized, and so she entered the kitchen where Reiji happened to be, cooking food for the rest to eat as 'breakfast'.

She paused at the doorway, before deciding that she didn't care. Reiji did not flee either, though he carefully did not look at her as she made coffee for herself.

"The blood you drank," he said as the smell of coffee filled the space. "That was demon's blood, wasn't it?"

Saya nodded, eyes on the dripping coffee.

"I'm aware of your drugging my food," she said, changing the topic.

Out of her peripheral vision she saw his movements stall, just for a second.

"I'm sure you've noticed they have no effect on me," Saya continued. The last drops of the coffee were joining the rest in the cup. "It's fine experimenting on me, but refrain from treating Yui-san to the same."

"You knew?" Reiji asked, voice measured and revealing no emotions.

It had actually been a guess, from what Karlheinz told her about his sons and the way she saw him observing her carefully as she ate. She had no proof that he was adding drugs to her food, not when her metabolism cleared its effects from her system before it could do anything to her.

Drugs and the likes only really affected her when she was weak, either from not having fed often enough or from serious injuries. It was much more effective to try it intravenously.

Saya decided not to tell him that. Reiji could try anything, and it wouldn't matter.

"Yes," she said instead. She had known he would try something, so technically she wasn't lying.

"And you still ate the food?"

Saya shrugged. "It was delicious."

Reiji eyed her some more, searching her face for an answer that he would find more satisfactory, before he slowly nodded, deciding to take the compliment. "Thank you."

She inclined her head, and sipped at her blood-laced coffee.


End file.
